


With These Wings I Soar

by rserenity



Series: The Dragons' Fate [3]
Category: Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Monster Girls | Monster Boys
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Monstergirl, Romance, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rserenity/pseuds/rserenity
Summary: A string of unfortunate events has led Adaklies to rough straits. There's a bounty on her, work is hard to find, and many of her nights are spent at the tavern. But when Jonas shows up, a mission of legendary scale on his lips, Adaklies leaves it all behind, hoping to find something more.
Series: The Dragons' Fate [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185659
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Adaklies knew the moment the bar door swung inward eyes were on her. She’d grown familiar with it all: the suspicions, the disdain, and the silent weight of stares. The accusation. As her dragon claws clicked against the worn wooden floor, she raised her chin. Pretended to ignore it. Acknowledging it wouldn’t help her anyways. She took a quick sniff. Neither honeyed scent of mead nor the bitter of beer were heavy on the air. The patrons would be well-behaved tonight.

Adaklies’s arm twitched, aching from the day’s work. She put the ache aside, walking tall all the way up to the bar where she pulled out the old, wooden stool marked with the wear of too many visits from a particular dragon and sat down. Gremm, the barkeep, sauntered down the bar to her and smirked.

“Well, what’s it tonight? Mead? Ale? Water?”

She gave him a look. “Water? Why the hell would I come to a bar for water?”

He shrugged. “Call it a fleeting hope. It would mean you didn’ need this shit any more.”

“Isn’t that bad for business?”

“Could be. Or maybe I’m just pretending to care so you’ll like me better than the other bartenders ‘round here.”

Adaklies’s face went sour. “Just pour some ale and shut up.” Gremm reached for the lower shelf but Adaklies stopped him. Lower shelf was too weak. “No, something stronger tonight.”

Her mug was half-empty after Adaklies finished her first gulp, smacking her lips and sighing. Thick, bitter and deliciously-dark scented. Hopefully it would hit before she had the chance to think better of a second or third round.

The ambience painted a calm picture. Typical for mid-week from Adaklies’s experience. Chatter was even but for the occasional holler, the groups thin and contained, monsters and men alike sharing their tales of the day. Adaklies heard her own foot tapping against the floor and silenced it. A good night for drinking. The strong stuff was a fine choice.

“You’ve got a looker,” said Gremm.

Adaklies looked up from her mug. Deciding she wasn’t yet buzzed enough for this, she took the opportunity to finish her drink before saying, “Yeah? How’s it look?”

“Youngin’. Maybe twenty-four summers? Focus’s as sharp as shark teeth.”

“Focused? How can you tell?”

“Eyes haven’ moved an inch since you walked in. Almos’ think they’re painted on at this point.”

Rolling her eyes, Adaklies spun her now-empty mug around. “Another suitor? Was feeling a brawl tonight.”

Her sore arms protested.

“Oop, ya never know. Here he comes,” said Gremm.

Adaklies leaned back, waiting. A moment later, she heard a cough and turned.

“Ederkleff?”

She brought her fist down on the bar with the wrath of gods. “It’s Adaklies!”

Silence seized the room with a cold iron fist while Adaklies directed every ounce of anger she could muster at the man that had approached. He broke eye contact, grimacing but properly embarrassed. When the rest of the bar realized it wasn’t turning into a fight, they went back to their business.

“That is just what I was told,” said the newcomer.

“By who?” she snapped.

“The village on the road here.”

Adaklies gnashed her teeth. Ederkleff was the name they remembered? Even after all the times she corrected them? She picked up her mug and shoved it into the newcomer’s chest. “Fill it.”

He stared at it, then looked at her. “Why should I?”

“Fill the cursed thing now or you’ll be flying out of here with a kick hard enough to leave you sore in the morning.”

Nostrils flaring, he leered at Adaklies, chewing the thought a moment before shoving his hand into his pocket, yanking out a coin, and pressing it to the table along with Adaklies’s mug. “Alright. Now in return, I have some questions for you.”

The moment Gremm was done with her refill, she snatched it up and took a healthy drink. Maybe she wouldn’t deck him. Hadn’t made up her mind yet. She took another look at him.

He was just as tall as her, no beanpole but no pile of meat, either. Built like he could jog a few miles and take a fight at the end of it. His hair was well-kept, short, and as bland as the pond water Gremm kept on the bottom shelves. Armored, too. Must’ve made a business of getting into fights.

“Well, out with the questions, I intend to be drunk as quickly as possible,” she said.

“I heard you might know where someone I’m looking for is,” he said.

“I sure hope not.”

“The Mother.”

Adaklies twitched, her mug freezing a moment before it touched her lips. Hoping he hadn’t seen, she quickly took her drink and set the mug down. “Don’t know where you got that idea.”

“The authorities told me you tried to claim her bounty.”

“Well of demon-bloodied course they did.”

“Then it would follow that—”

“No, I didn’t, and I don’t. End of story.”

He scoffed and mumbled under his breath, “I hate working with criminals.”

Adaklies raised her voice. “Got something to say, say it loud enough for everyone to hear, greenhorn.”

“I am the greenhorn? You looked atop your own head lately?”

“You’re fast overstaying a welcome that was never offered in the first place.”

The man growled, but swallowed whatever comeback he had brewing. “Sorry. My temper has been getting the best of me. The road here was long. But I still need to know where she is.”

Squinting, Adaklies took a concentrated look at both of his ears.

“What are you doing?”

“Just wondering what’s stuck in your ears because I could’ve sworn I told you I didn’t know.”

It took another deep breath for him to stay his tongue. “You are my only lead. You have to know something. Like who might know where she is, where she was headed, or what she wanted to do next.”

“You come trouncing in, getting my name wrong, call me a criminal, then tell me I’m your only hope? Fuck off already.”

The greenhorn’s feet squirmed. While the door may have been across the room, he already had one foot out it. But, somehow, something kept him in place. He took a seat.

“I will buy you another round,” he said through gritted teeth.

Adaklies glanced at him, but didn’t object when Gremm handed her another filled mug. Before it touched her lips, she half-considered putting it down. Enough alcohol could make her crazy enough to actually tell this lawfully-uptight idiot something.

Then again, it might get her that brawl she was feeling, too. She drank.

He spoke up again. “Now, if you would, where can—”

“Why do you want to know? I don’t know what you think the Mother’s gonna do, but she ain’t.” She made a point of looking him up and down. “Not for you.”

“Thank you, but I hardly need your approval. I am…” He paused, looking around the bar, then came in close, voice low. “I need her help.”

A whiff of him made her nostrils flare. Too clean. “For what?”

“I have business with the queen of Ir. Livoetian.”

“What, you wanna meet her?”

“I need the Mother’s help to kill her.”

Demon-bloody-cursed hells. Gods. Adaklies took a long look into the man’s eyes. Gods, the man was serious. Just…

Ir was the strongest monster nation in the world, commanding some of the strongest armies the world had ever seen. Their conflict with Aezerin had lasted more than a century. Claimed millions.

And this fool means to end it. Look at him! He’s a stub! A fence post that’s been hit one too many times on the head, thought Adaklies. That armor couldn’t possibly stand up to Livoetian’s magic. And carrying his sword like that? Did the poker even have any enchantments? She squinted her eyes at it. It might.

Adaklies slowed down and took a deep breath. He was nothing. This was nothing. She should just tell him the location, get him on his way and forget she ever saw him.

Her mug’s handle snapped.

Gasping, Adaklies pulled her claw away as the mug hit the bar. Thankfully, it didn’t spill. A moment of shock froze her before she snatched the thing with both hands and downed it.

That sharp, biting flavor never tasted so good.

“I still don’t think the Mother’s going to help you.”

“Then… you do know her.”

“I did. That whole business was over two years ago, though. She’s long gone now.”

The greenhorn’s face fell. “Might you know where she was headed?”

“I might.”

He signaled for Gremm to get Adaklies another round, but the barkeep was a step ahead of him. Wasting no time, Adaklies brought it to her lips. Then froze.

The drink was bitter. Far, far too bitter. This wasn’t what she’d been drinking. And it wasn’t meant to get her drunk. She looked to Gremm, but the man had put the entire bar’s length between them.

Damn.

“What is it worth?” The greenhorn reached for his coinpurse. “I’ve got some spare coin. I might be able to offer something.”

Why did they always think she wanted money?

Shaking her head, she snuck a glance at the mirror behind the bar. Three men and a woman were spreading out from the entrance. Their pace was subtle, but not without some urgency. A net.

“Adaklies?”

She peeked at the side exit. Clear. It was easy to overlook. She looked back at the greenhorn. A distraction? No, his story is too ridiculous.

“Were you serious?” she asked.

“Wha—what do you mean serious?” He lowered his voice. “About killing Livoetian?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I was. I would not take something of that manner lightly!”

Benethia help him, he wasn’t lying. Either that, or Adaklies had completely forgotten how to read idiots like him.

Seizing his arm, she yanked him out of his seat and dragged him toward the side exit.

“What are you doing?!” he stumbled, trying to get a good grip on her arm.

“Just shut up and follow!”

The stalkers were close behind, but all she needed was a couple seconds.

The door blasted open before her kick and the two of them lurched into the alley. The moment Adaklies heard the door close, she let the greenhorn go.

“By all Hell’s demons! You are ready to punch me one second and the next you’re lugging me around like a drinking cohort! I do not know what sort of impression you got, but I am not trying to get friendly with you.”

Adaklies looked up to the rooftops. “Bounty hunters. Make yourself scarce.”

“Bounty hunters?” He looked down the alley to both exits, then behind himself. “I did not—”

A smirk grew on Adaklies’s face as she watched from the rooftop. The greenhorn scrambled to find her, but like everyone else, he never bothered to look up. In all likelihood, the bounty hunters would leave him alone. It was her they were after.

Attracted by the commotion, two figures approached the greenhorn from the nearest alley exit. Monsters. A lamia and a lizard. At the same time, the four humans from before emerged from the side door. The six of them surrounded the greenhorn. Head down, Adaklies listened in.

“Where’d she go?” asked the lamia.

“I have no idea,” said the greenhorn.

He put his hand on his sword and Adaklies rolled her eyes. The lad was far too quick to accept a fight. These were bounty hunters, not assassins.

“Jumpy?” asked the lamia.

“I am surrounded by a bunch of armed strangers. Sorry, can’t help it.”

“What were you two talking about?” asked the lamia

“None of your business.”

Dragging a claw across her face, Adaklies almost scoffed. Just make something up! Who cares if you lie to save your skin?

The lamia slithered forward, prompting the rest of her group to close in as well. “We’re not here for you, little one. Just tell us where she is and we’ll be about our way.”

“I told you I do not know. She was here one second and gone the next.”

The lizard growled at the lamia. “I told you this was pointless without a flier. We can’t track her like this.”

The greenhorn nudged his sword from its sheath. Adaklies almost yelled at him. They are about to leave! Don’t provoke them!

The lamia looked at the greenhorn, raising an eyebrow at the half-drawn sword. “Whatever. Kill him.”

What?!

To the greenhorn’s credit, his sword was the first drawn, but six-to-one odds were something he’d need to be a god of the sword to overcome. Adaklies had to make a choice.

She dropped. Claws flashed and the lamia’s head hit the ground a second after Adaklies. Flowing into a spin, she aimed her tail at the lizard—but her target leapt back. She smirked at Adaklies and drew her sword.

The clang of other combatants’ steel sung behind her. Her claws met the lizard’s sword in chorus.

As Adaklies expected, the lizard knew her way around a fight. She alternated swings, thrusts, feints, and kicks all together in violent symphony. Adaklies’s breaths beat cadence with her own movement, dodging, parrying, and countering where she could. A strike hummed for her unscaled stomach. She blocked and replied in resonance with her own thrust, only to have it knocked away. Whistling, the lizard’s sword swung for her neck. Eyes locked on the blade, Adaklies leaned backwards, hoping to rebound with a counter in the following opening, but got too greedy. The thirsty steel came away quenched.

Adaklies grunted, resisting the urge to hold the wound. The lizard took no time to celebrate and broke into deadly song again. This time, Adaklies caught it in her bloodied claw and replied with an upward strike. Growling, her opponent yanked her sword away, but the motion stole her speed and she staggered, blood spreading along her chest.

Their brutal melody ebbed and flowed, called and responded, violently sharp and deadly soft against the backdrop of steel antiphony. The longer they fought the more Adaklies bled and, more importantly, the longer the greenhorn had to hold off four opponents on his own. Adaklies had to end this before a sword found her back.

She waited for a thrust.

It came in high, aiming for her face. Resisting the urge to duck backwards, Adaklies crooked her head to the side and nudged the sword a touch to the side with her palm. Then, at the peak of the thrust, Adaklies brought her wing around and swat the lizard’s temple.

The lizard blinked. Then staggered. It was tiny, nothing more than an imbalance on her front foot, but it was enough. Adaklies’s claw found her heart and the lizard danced no more.

Spinning, Adaklies was shocked to see the greenhorn not only standing, but facing only three opponents. The fourth was on the ground and one of the three left had a visible limp. A second of watching showed they were hardly novices: they held steady stances, kept moving for blind spots, and attacked without exposing much. Greenhorn, however, was faster and more efficient. Impassioned. The bounty hunters were just here for a payoff.

Feet digging into the dirt, Adaklies tore into a run, leaping into the air, her wings fast remembering the fierce harmony of battle. Her ferocious cry caught the attention of the nearest man and he turned to her. She raised her claw and he brought up his sword to meet it.

Bait taken, Adaklies adjusted. Instead of swinging with her claw, she tucked her arms and legs in, diverting her wings to turn the low aerial swipe into a tight spin. She stretched her tail out, turning it into a blurred club of muscle and scale.

It hit the ground with a dull thud.

She bounced backward, reorienting herself. The man had dodged and was charging her. Just as she was readying her stance, however, a swordpoint exploded from his chest, his finale marked by a shout and fall.

The greenhorn pulled his sword free while Adaklies watched the last two flee down the alley. Smart.

But it would’ve been smarter to not hunt her at all.

The bite of Adaklies’s wound reminded her what her cockiness had cost her. She covered it with a claw and looked to the greenhorn. His cloak had a new tear, but it was impossible to tell if his armor had gained any dents or if the ones she saw were all old.

“You alright?” he asked, gesturing to her wound.

“Fine.” She walked back toward the bar. Something hard could help with it.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm as she passed by. She shrugged him off, but not before he had the chance to hold out a rough bandage. “Here.”

Adaklies narrowed her eyes at him, ignoring the bandage, then continued inside.

Gremm didn’t need any prompt to slide her another drink. Tipping it back, she drank long and loud. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t have time to enjoy it. Someone would report that mess in the alley soon enough and they needed to be gone. As the drink came back down, Adaklies heard the greenhorn walk in behind her.

Wiping her mouth, she turned to him. “You’re not bad in a fight.”

“I have too much practice.” He pointed to her neck wound. “Are you sure you are fine?”

Adaklies rolled her eyes, licked her claws and smeared the blood off where she’d been cut, revealing the wound had already closed. “I’m a dragon, greenhorn.”

He scowled at the nickname. “Whatever. We were in the middle of a conversation.”

“And I was in the middle of a drink.” She downed the rest of the mug and slid a few coins across the bar to Gremm. He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sure I don’ need to say it, but this’s too much,” he said.

“It’s a reservation,” said Adaklies. “Don’t throw this stool out. I’ve worked hard to make it comfortable.”

His eyes widened. “You’re headin’ out?”

She nodded. To the greenhorn, she said, “Got a name?”

“Wait a second, where are you going?”

“Not ‘you’. Us.”

His expression hardened. “You do not need to bother yourself with escorting me. I only need a location and I can get there myself.”

“I’m sure you can. Now, again, what’s your name because I’m betting you don’t want me calling you ‘greenhorn’ the whole way.”

Combing his hand through his hair and back down his neck, he bit back a grumble and held out his hand. Adaklies took it.

“I’m Jonas. And I hope you know what you have gotten yourself into.”

**

“We need to make a detour,” said Jonas.

Adaklies tore her gaze from the sky and her daydreaming, sending a suspicious look back at Jonas. “You want to know where the Mother is and yet you’re not interested in going there?”

“Well, the plan was to get the information and head there after this detour. I was not expecting to pick up a traveling partner,” he grumbled.

“I’m so terribly sorry for ruining your plans.”

“We need to head north.”

“North? There’s nothing that way for miles.”

“There is nothing west for miles, but you are taking me that way anyways,” he said. “Besides, there is something north. Livoetian’s First Army.”

Adaklies needed a moment to process what he said. “You know Livoetian’s First Army is a little larger than that group of bounty hunters we took care of, right?”

Her jeer bounced off him like water. “We need to head that way now in order to intercept them. If you are not interested, just tell me where I can find the Mother and you won’t need to come.”

She really should have thought this through more before joining him. Killing Livoetian? She didn’t know if the idea sounded more stupid or crazy, but it had plenty of both.

It was possible, though.

With a growl, Adaklies yanked on her hair. “Alright, have it your way.” Even saying it made her head spin. “But you’re going to tell me why.”

Jonas walked past Adaklies, leading down their new path. “You will find out soon enough.”

“Why not tell me now?”

He paused, his expression wavering. There was conflict behind those eyes, fierce enough for her to see the sparks of it. Eventually, one side won. “You helped me, Adaklies, and do not think I am not grateful. But you are still a criminal.” 

Her face soured. Everywhere she went it followed her. At least in Keian enough people had learned to either keep it to themselves or stay out of her way. Watching Jonas’s back as it grew further away, she debated arguing the point, but thought better of it. She’d been down that road a thousand times with plenty of people who didn’t wear their britches half as tight as he did.

Instead, she crossed her arms, looked up at the sky, and fell in behind him.

With their detour, they were sent off the main road and were now cutting through wavy plains. The heat was bearable, though Adaklies had to squint to watch the rolling clouds amble by. It’d been a spell since she’d been this far outside the city. The soft rustling of wild grass soothed her too-civilized ears almost enough to get her to smile. She took a glance backward toward Keian to the rubble that was the mayor’s mansion.

She frowned.

“Why did you do it?” said Jonas.

She knew what he was looking for, but replied anyways. “Do what?”

“Lying to the district adjudicator. For the bounty.”

Ir’s district adjudicators were the most powerful monsters in the entire country, short of Livoetian’s generals and the Demon Lord herself . One of them had it out for Adaklies. Just thinking about her set Adaklies off.

“Why do you even care? You seem like you’ve got your mind already made up about it.”

He couldn’t hide his annoyance, assuming he tried. “Why can you not just deny it like every other criminal? Or at least try to justify it.”

Adaklies opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the right words to say. Deny it? That never worked. If someone’s already decided you’re a criminal, what’s your word worth?

“Alright, you do not want to talk about it. I understand,” said Jonas. “Least it means you still have a troubled conscience about it.”

“Just out of curiosity… what did you hear?” said Adaklies

“You thought you could take advantage of the chaotic encounter in Keian by bringing a fake body to the adjudicator. With the bounty over a thousand gold, I almost don’t blame you for trying. Bounty hunters like you probably have to skim off whatever society leaves behind.”

Adaklies huffed.

“You wanted the people to pressure the adjudicator into giving you the bounty without looking at the body too closely. But there was one thing you couldn’t take into account: she takes her job seriously. She found the truth and condemned you for it.”

There it was. Again. That sneer on his face. That raw, mind-killing emotion that turned people into demons, spitting in Adaklies’s face like she was nothing more than refuse spilled on their boots. She’d had enough of it. Before Jonas could say another word she marched off, steps heavy and stiff. She should never have let the conversation get that far.

The day was growing late by the time Jonas caught back up with her. She was on a knee, digging through her pack and pulling out her bedroll. She’d come across the ruins of some sort of stone structure and figured it was as good a campsite as any. Grunting, she gestured to the ruins. She wasn’t about to spend words explaining her thought process.

Jonas surveyed the ruins, looked at Adaklies, and gave a half-hearted shrug before setting his own pack down. The two set up camp in silence.

They sat across from each other, the fire between them and their bodies facing away from one another. Adaklies was acting childish, she knew, but her frustration was still hot enough that she didn’t care. Tomorrow she’d probably have to apologize for that outburst. He was trying to drop the subject when it was clear it made her uncomfortable, she’d just been too impulsive. Why did she pursue it anyways?

Revenge popped into her head as it had many times, but she dismissed it. It may have eased part of her to send that corrupt liar to the grave, but the part of her that screamed for it was merely loud, not important. Wasn’t her style, anyways.

“I’m sorry,” said Jonas.

Adaklies eyed Jonas. Had she heard right?

“I should not have snapped at you. Or assumed the worst,” said Jonas. He was looking straight at her. “I… do not understand why you did it. Or if you did not, why won’t deny it.”

Adaklies hoped the fire was distorting her face from view because she couldn’t string together enough thoughts to form words, much less a response.

“Shouldn’t it be natural for you?” he asked. “To deny it?”

“It should be.”

“Then why…”

Her glare doused his question. “Why do you care?”

“My partner told me I should try to be more inquisitive.” His head drooped. “To understand why people act like they do instead of taking them at face value.”

Adaklies sat up, stretching out her wings before facing Jonas. “There’s something else. Something that made you change your mind or at least consider changing it. I was nothing but scum to you before.”

At that he scratched the back of his neck. His head was still down, eyes on the dirt before him. “I have seen that look before, the one you gave me right before you stormed off. When I was a guardsman, I got it all the time.” He finally looked up. “Back then, I thought I was always right. That my judgement was perfect and all citizens should just be grateful for my help. I did not know what that look meant until my guardsman days were far behind me.”

Adaklies did her best to keep her lips from curling into a sneer. It sort of worked. “You were a guardsman. What a surprise.”

“Now is not the best time for your sarcasm.”

She waved off his comment like it was smoke. “Whatever. So you don’t think I did it any more. Do you want a pat on the back?”

“I do not know. In fact, I do not even know what you want. It would have been so much easier to just tell me what I wanted to know for both of us. Traveling with a human limits you to walking. And do you not have some sort of life in Keian? Obligations? Friends?”

“Not really.”

“That still does not answer the question. Why are you here, Adaklies?”

It was a good question. What made Adaklies think she had any measure of worth to Jonas or his mission?

“Because I want to be.”

Jonas sighed. “Just be ready for the First Army. They are not far off. We will run into them tomorrow.” He laid down, turning away from the fire. “Put the fire out before you go to sleep.”

“Still not sharing your plan?”

“Merely playing it safe. You will know soon.”

Adaklies leaned back, staring at the treeline, trying to make out the leaves in the darkness. Maybe he had a plan, maybe he didn’t. It made sense he wasn’t interested in sharing it with a random person like Adaklies, and who was she to argue? She wasn’t anyone special.

The First Army, huh? A battalion tens of thousands strong of Livoetian’s best. Even Aezerin’s finest feared open combat with it. And tomorrow, they were going to deliberately cross paths.

Adaklies spent another hour with herself, the sounds of the night, and the breathing of the fire before snuffing it out and curling up to sleep.

**

“Get up.”

In the tiny fraction of a second before Adaklies opened her eyes, she already knew something was wrong.

The voice belonged to a woman.

The morning greeted her kindly with a spear in her face and three armored monsters looking down at her. Adaklies eyed the weapon. “While I do like iron in my diet, the splinters might tear my throat on the way down.”

“Keep that wit up and I’ll see you get a healthy serving,” said the lamia at the other end of the spear. She looked behind her. “Sarge, she’s up!”

Adaklies’s eyes darted between her captors. She had their complete, undivided attention. She shifted, trying to sit up and get a better look around her, but the spear urged her back down.   
After a rustling and some footsteps, a rather imposing oni—their leader, Adaklies guessed—stepped inside the circle of monsters surrounding Adaklies.

“What’re you and stick-up-the-ass doing out here?” said the sergeant.

The nickname she gave Jonas made her smile. “Honestly, no idea. I’m just following him.”

“And where might he be going that would lead you directly into the path of Ir’s First Army?”

“Far as I know, ‘Ir’s First Army’ was exactly where we meant to be.”

“What business do a dragon and a human have with the First Army?”

“Like I said—” Adaklies started to sit up, but was again rebuffed by the spear. “Like I said, I’m just following. I don’t know what he wanted with you.”

The oni’s face wrinkled.

“I say we just skewer ‘em and be done with it. No need to take risks,” said the lamia.

“And that’s why you’re not in charge,” said the oni. “There’s plenty of room in the prison for these two. We can make that decision once we’ve figured out what they’re here for.”

“I already told you that!” Jonas yelled. He wasn’t far off.

“Get the shackles on her,” said the oni. “Dragon grade, remember. I don’t need to remind you how strong some of these are.”

Adaklies smirked. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. You were caught sleeping. Should’ve set a watch.”

The soldiers got Adaklies up and shackled, marching alongside Jonas as they set out. Adaklies jabbed Jonas in the side none too gently. “I hope this is part of your plan.”

He scowled. “Not exactly. I thought the sergeant would be more reasonable.”

“Guess the army don’t work like your guard, huh?”

“Guess so.”

“What exactly did you tell her?”

“I told her what we were here for. I did not lie, if that’s what you’re thinking. It should have been simple enough for her to understand.”

“Great, so even our captors know what we’re here for, but not me? You know, the dragon you’ve been traveling with?”

Jonas stumbled forward, grunting in pain. One of the soldiers behind them had jabbed him with the butt of her spear.

“Enough chatter,” said the soldier.

Adaklies smouldered, her breath leaking in heated fumes, but didn’t do anything more than leer.

It wasn’t long before the group crested a hill and the breadth of Ir’s First Army was laid out before them. The first thing Adaklies noticed was how orderly it all was. A grid of tents covered the plains like a far-cast net and dark blotches of soldiers swarmed in activity about them. Fires burned at regular breaks in the tents, shooting up white smoke in wispy pillars. Groups of soldiers in square formations trained in unison.

Adaklies stole a glance at Jonas and found his eyes locked onto the general’s tent. There was something else on his face, but she couldn’t quite puzzle it out before an impolite prod ended her idle observations.

They passed a perimeter guard and many dozens of curious eyes before coming across a tarp-covered set of sizable metal cages. Jonas and Adaklies were thrown into adjacent cages before their shackles were removed. Much to Adaklies’s annoyance, the cages were built at a height a touch too short to stand comfortably in. Thankfully, the camp was light on prisoners, giving Jonas and Adaklies plenty of room to themselves.

“Warden.”

Adaklies turned to the voice. The oni sergeant was talking with a wolfwoman who’d let her hair and fur grow too long.

“Sergeant. I see you’ve given me something to keep myself busy with. Where are these from?”

The two wandered a short ways off and continued their discussion. Gestures were exchanged. The sergeant presented Jonas and Adaklies’s bags, pointing out various things in each. After a short briefing, the warden nodded and started over to her new prisoners while the sergeant turned, gathered her squad, and left. Adaklies was sure to shoot the soldier who’d jabbed her earlier a dirty look.

“Newcomers,” said the warden, addressing Adaklies and Jonas. “I am Warden Yiet.” Her tail twitched and she shot Jonas a look. “The two of you are either far too innocent or far too foolish, stumbling into our camp on purpose. I hope, for your sakes, it’s the former.”

“I—We are telling the truth,” said Jonas, grabbing on the bars of his cage. “The general knows me. All I need to do is see her and she will recognize me.”

The warden raised an eyebrow. “You don’t get to ask me for anything and you certainly don’t get to go anywhere close to my commanding officer, especially in a time of war. If I think you’re harmless, you get to leave. Alive. And that’s the most you can hope for.”

“Surely you can—”

The warden slammed a paw against Jonas’s cage. “What did I just say?”

“That I don’t get to ask you for anything, ma’am,” said Jonas, snapping to attention.

The warden looked at Adaklies. “Sergeant’s report said you were pretty quiet. Sure there’s nothing more you want to tell me before I figure out what to do with you?”

Adaklies jerked her head toward Jonas. “He’s the brains here.”

“How do you know him?”

“Hardly.”

The warden stepped away from Jonas to stand with arms crossed in front of Adaklies. “Are you enjoying yourself in that cage?”

Adaklies bumped her horns against the woefully low roof to demonstrate. “Not so much.”

The warden leaned in. “I’ve been patient so far because these cages have been barren and I hate idle afternoons, but keep giving me vague one-word answers and you will run through that patience surprisingly fast. Now: how do you know him?”

Adaklies grimaced. Her claws dug into the steel of the cage, frustrated to find it hardly gave to her strength. “He barged in on a perfectly good drinking session of mine a couple days back. Told me he needed a guide. I obliged. Or, I should say, I’m attempting to.” She flicked the cage, making it ring. “Not very able to at the moment.”

“Where are you guiding him?”

“Dragon’s Horns. You do know where that is, right?”

Jonas stiffened, shooting Adaklies a look, asking with his eyes, Really?

Adaklies shrugged back.

“What are you doing at the Dragon’s Horns?”

“Can’t say,” said Jonas.

Adaklies crossed her arms. Did the man not have a bone of deception in his body?

“Why?” said the warden.

“Because I can’t say.”

The warden tapped her foot a few times. “Alright. I’ll come back in a couple days when those cages have hopefully changed your mind.”

At that, the warden left.

“So, genius,” said Adaklies, leaning on the cage wall between them, “What’s your plan to get us out of this?”

“Wait.”

“That’s it? Wait?”

“Yes.” He walked to the back of his cage, sat down, and got comfortable. “We will be freed soon enough.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Weren’t you paying attention? I know General Greyemeid.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course I am. You think I would have led us into the army if I was not? ”

She knew the name Greyemeid. Pretty much everyone who lived near any form of civilization in Aezerin or Ir did.

Especially those who were unlucky enough to stand in her warpath.

Greyemeid had been the genius behind Ir’s military strategy for many years now. The razing of Thornguard. The First Advance. The rout at Glaris. Aezerin’s human population dwarfed Ir’s monster population and Greyemeid understood how to fight an adversary with far greater numbers than her own. As the war raged on, Adaklies had heard her share of tall tales about the general. That she’d fought the Mother and won. That she’d single-handedly stormed a castle and taken it. That she could wield all three forms of magic.

Adaklies figured she’d be at the head of the First Army, but Adaklies kept her distance from armies, so she’d never known for sure. She was a bounty hunter, not a mercenary.

At least, she used to be a bounty hunter.

Eyes scrutinizing, she glanced at Jonas. How exactly did he know the general, then? Was he a soldier, too? He fought like one, but she wasn’t getting the soldier vibe from him. He was too… critical.

True to her word, the warden left them to their own devices for the rest of the day. Adaklies prodded at Jonas a few times, trying to learn more about him and his relationship with the general, but he was oddly reserved.

The war camp gave her some degree of entertainment. Soldiers ebbed and flowed about the area, always active in some fashion. The prison guard changed a couple times. Teams carrying heavy loads of equipment marched back and forth. Squads filed through to the shouts of their leader. But it wasn’t all business. Laughing monsters, joking with each other and drinking, stumbled through the area now and then. Some of them weren’t even in uniform.

What really caught Adaklies’s eye, though, were the men. Men. In Livoetian’s First Army. She’d assumed that the monster nation’s army fighting under the one they called the monster lord would be monsters.

Jonas and Adaklies were served a meager dinner before the camp went back to ignoring them. Once more, Adaklies tried to pry into Jonas’s past, but all she got was, “Just give it some time. I’ll explain later.”

**

The next morning came with a kick and rattle. Adaklies jumped, bumping her horns into the ceiling of her cage before she remembered where she was. Glaring, she looked to the source of the disturbance.

The warden was at the door of Jonas’s cage. And she didn’t look happy.

“Get up, grunt,” said spat at Jonas.

He was just as quick to rise as Adaklies. She saw him pat his waist where his sword would’ve been. A quick recognition flashed on his face before his focus landed on the warden.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The general has summoned you.” She wrenched the cage open, shackles in hand. “Hands out.”

He complied.

Once the shackles were on, the warden seized Jonas around the arm. Her grip hardly seemed gentle. “Not a word from you. Got it?”

He nodded.

“Then get moving.”

And the two were gone.

Welp, that proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not that Adaklies thought he was lying, but he may have been tricked by someone claiming to be the general.

Crossing her arms, Adaklies plopped down. It was fair, she supposed. She had her own secrets.

True Dragonfire.

She closed her eyes and remembered.

\--

“I wish to offer you something,” said the Mother, attending her braids, “for watching after my husband and I while we were unconscious.

Adaklies perked up. Humility requested she turn down the offer, but she’d never had much of that.

“Long ago, my children had mastery over their flame in ways the dragons of today have since forgotten. Today I will show how to seize that mastery, at least in part.”

Adaklies crossed her arms. “Are you saying dragons forgot how to use their flame?”

“There is more to dragonfire than breath.” She glanced back at Adaklies with those blackened-green eyes of hers. Adaklies’s throat tightened. Looking down, she squeezed her chest as if she might feel whatever it was the Mother was talking about.

The Mother finished with her braids and walked over to Adaklies. Adaklies craned her neck to meet the Mother’s eyes. Sweet demons, Adaklies would never get used to her height. The Mother held out her hand first as if to offer something, but then closed her fingers slightly.

“This is what I offer you. Watch carefully, but even more importantly: feel.”

Adaklies stared at the Mother’s hand as if her life depended on it.

The Mother breathed. And then she _breathed_. The room cooked in an instant. Adaklies’s scales hissed and her skin sizzled from the violent flash of searing heat. The air was as thick as water and sucking in a breath was drowning in a sea of fire. Her vision wavered. And just as she thought she’d burn from the inside it stopped. Not just the heat, but her body had cooled like the burning was never even there.

Adaklies blinked. And in the Mother’s hand was a sword.

She believed it a sword from the handle and the blade. But the rest of it… Wicked flames of pure steel licked up the back of the blade, still yet wordlessly violent. The blade itself was gently curved. While the cutting edge glowed white, as the sword dipped toward the cruel flames in the back it fouled to a jet black. The grip melted into the Mother’s huge claw, blurring where it ended and the Mother began. It was made by and meant for no other.

“This is a drekhel. True dragonfire. Steel of the soul. And within every dragon is the spark to bring it forth.”

“How?”

“That is precisely what I just showed you.” She twirled the sword—the drekhel—around her hand with a simple flick. “There is almost nothing in this world a drekhel cannot cut, for there is little truer than a dragon’s fire. That does not, however, mean it is the perfect weapon. It offers little defense and will wear on your body like the road wears on wheels.”

“Little defense?”

“In cutting, the blade is an artisan. Yet the substance of a drekhel is not metal, but brittle fire given form. True steel would shatter it.” 

As Adaklies’s eyes wandered back to the drekhel, her trepidations began to fade. She’d never seen anything like it and, considering the owner of this particular drekhel, she imagined never again.

“And there is a price,” said the Mother. “As I said, the sword is made from your flame. Once you learn how to summon it, you will be unable to breathe fire. That is not because you will forget, but because to an inexperienced dragon, bringing the sword forth and breathing fire are one and the same. Without many years of practice to recognize the subtle differences between drekhel and flame, you will only be able to wield one or the other.”

“How many years of practice?”

“Hundreds, I suspect. Beyond what a normal dragon could do.”

It was a heavy price. But the Mother had offered this as a gift. Surely the tradeoff was worth it.

The Mother tossed her drekhel with whimsical dismissal. A second after leaving her hand, there was a flash of flame and the drekhel was no more. She spun, a liquid smooth twist of her body, and sat next to the still-unconscious Folsomar.

“I still revel in that moment I realized my defeat at this man’s hand. When I see it in my mind’s eye, a reckless fire ignites within me.” She drew in a deep breath. “Leave us, Adaklies.”

Nodding, Adaklies walked out, hand over her heart.

\--

That familiar pang was back again. Adaklies ignored it.

Tentatively, she opened her claw just enough for a hilt to fit inside of it. Two years since the Mother had told her about drekhels. She’d tried to summon one several times, yet’d always been met with failure. She knew how to breathe, yes, but it came out as fire, not a sword. What would hers look like, she wondered. Would it be fiery yet functional like the Mother’s? Would it look like her?

Adaklies set her jaw in thought. Breathe. Adaklies remembered the absolute heat of the blade, the suffocating pressure that cut straight through her core. Closing her eyes, she evened out her breaths.

Breathe.

She closed her mouth. The fire didn’t need to come out there. It was in her hand, solid. Real. It had a hilt, a blade, an aura of menace. She sucked in a breath, drew it to her chest, let it rumble in her lungs where the fire was created. Breathing fire and bringing the blade were the same. Her claw tightened. And she breathed.

Smoke filled her mouth and leaked out her nose. Coughing, Adaklies stood, patting her chest, trying to get the stagnated fire breath out of her system. The smoke tasted terrible, like dirt and ash. She spat to clear the taste out.

Another failure. Typical. She wondered why she still tried at this point. The Mother could very well be the only living dragon with a drekhel, so what made Adaklies think she was special enough to have one too? Slumping, she sat and looked around for something to distract her.

“Your friend looks happy to see you.”

Adaklies turned. The warden was pointing at Adaklies with one paw and with the other guiding Jonas—a plainly dejected Jonas. His head was down and from his lack of reaction, it seemed the warden’s taunt didn’t reach his ears. His cage opened with a creak and the warden shoved him inside.

The lock clicked. Spinning the key around a finger, the warden walked off without a word.

“What happened?”

Still staring at the ground, Jonas mumbled a reply. “She… she said she would think about it.”

Think about what!? Adaklies opened her mouth then snapped it shut. Patience. “What did you ask her to think about?”

“I did not ask her to think about anything. I asked her to do.” He hit the bottom of the cage, finally making eye contact. The brown glint in his eyes was glowing, a spark that ignited something within him. “I thought she was serious.”

“Serious about what?”

“Loving me!”

Adaklies’s face went blank. Loving him? Her jaw dropped open to a gape. They were _dating_?

“How in the demon-cursed world did you start dating Greyemeid?”

His mouth twisted and his eyes darkened.

“It was more like she started dating me. It was about a year and a half ago. She blackmailed me into dinner.”

“But, how?” said Adaklies.

“We had been adversaries for a while. I’ve fought many battles as part of the army opposing her.”

Adaklies lowered her voice. “So you’re an Aezerin soldier?”

“No!” he nearly shouted, but reigned himself in. “No, I’m a mercenary. Mostly. I just fought for Aezerin a few times. I did enough to be noticed.”

Eyes locked on Jonas, Adaklies got to her feet. There was no way she could sit for this. “Enough to be noticed? Jonas, Greyemeid must’ve fought against armies numbering in the tens of thousands. You are one soldier.”

Jonas stared back, deeper thoughts churning behind those dark eyes. “I think I am starting to understand how frustrating your position must be when people cannot believe you.”

Adaklies snapped her mouth shut.

“Look, I got lucky. Or unlucky, depending how you see it. I was a lynchpin soldier when she tried to maneuver a smaller force through a pass. I intercepted assassins she sent for my commanding officer. I killed her scouts during one of her rush maneuvers, leaving her blind and forced her to retreat. I made it my personal mission to track her down and stop her when she infiltrated Aezerin’s capital. It was not like I tried to be noticed, I was just in the right place at the right time. Often.”

“That still doesn’t explain why she’d be taken in with you.”

“She told me that she was sick of her enemies underestimating her. I guess the people Aezerin throws at her don’t think much of her because, even with her reputation, she’s still a monster.”

“So after this dinner she blackmailed you into, you started dating?”

“No. Yes?” Jonas clenched his hands then went for the empty spot on his hip where his sword would’ve been. “I don’t know. I rebuffed her, said I could not date the leading general of an army at the head of a war with my home country. She respected my decision and left. But then we just kind of… kept doing it.”

“‘Kept doing it’?”

“She would leave clues, point me to where her army would be next. And I would keep following. At first it was every couple months or so, but we both got more insistent about it.”

“But you’re still a soldier and she’s still a general. Or did you figure that part out?”

“No.” Jonas’s voice again got away from him. “I stopped fighting for Aezerin. We talked about possibilities. But she just would not leave. No matter where that conversation tried to go, it always ended with her still a general and myself still incapable of accepting it. That is why I came here.” His eyes narrowed and cut straight through Adaklies. “I had the solution! I laid it out before her: kill Livoetian. It was so simple. But then she said she would ‘think about it.’”

“Without Livoetian to spur the war with Aezerin onwards, it would end. Then there would be no need for generals,” said Adaklies.

“Precisely.”

Pressing her lips shut, Adaklies nodded. Several times. Then she gestured Jonas closer. “Come here.”

He walked up to the wall between them.

She slapped him in the face as hard as she could.

He cried out, stumbling backwards. “What in Benethia’s name are you doing?”

“Come here.” Adaklies tried in vain to reach him through the holes in the cage wall. “Come here so I can hit you again!”

“Why?”

“You idiot! Of course she didn’t just say yes! First of all, that’s the dumbest plan you could’ve possibly come up with. Did you even pay her the slightest bit of attention the entire time you were dating?”

“What are you talking about? I gave her an answer to the problem we've been having and she threw it back in my face.”

“And have you spent more than five seconds thinking about why?”

He took a moment. “I... suppose I could give it more thought.”

“You really thought she would drop everything—her entire life, her responsibilities as a general, her reputation, her friends, and her livelihood—at the drop of a hat? Not only that, but you expected her to react favorably to you asking her to do it?”

Now he looked much less certain. “I knew it would be difficult for her, but she has told me in the past she would do anything for us to be together.”

“She didn’t mean ‘anything’ literally. No one ever does. Do you think you’d still be with her if she hadn’t accepted your decision on your first date? If she didn’t respect your position as a soldier fighting against her?”

A heavy silence preceded his answer. “No.”

“Then why in demon-infested hells would you expect her to be happy about your complete lack of respect for her post? You’ve put her in a terrible position! She has to choose between her army and you!”

Jonas slumped against the cage wall. “I know. I know she does. I never expected this to be easy. I do not enjoy putting this weight on her shoulders, but… this war will not be ended without sacrifice. As a general, I think she understands that better than most.”

“You know why she’s fighting for Ir, right? So you should also know why leaving Ir’s army would be difficult.”

His mouth hung open, but nothing came out of it. He collapsed, a bundle of legs and arms, but his gaze rose, dark and fouled.

Adaklies turned her back to him. He finally realized his mistake.

_Why do I care, though?_

The question came to her so quietly and so quickly she forgot where she was for a second. What invested her in him all of a sudden? She owed him nothing. She was Adaklies the bounty hunter, not a porter, not a guide, not a navigator.

Adaklies closed her eyes tight until they hurt. Something was telling her the answer to that question was important. She dropped to the ground, looking up at the sky through the grid of steel imprisoning her. If she found the answer, she might also find out why she was here in the first place.

She snuck a glance over to Jonas. He was looking at the ground, hands in his lap, still but for his breathing.

What a wonderful pair they were, bumbling around so aimlessly a compass couldn’t give them direction.

**

Adaklies and Jonas shared little conversation. She would glance over to him every now and then, unable to hold in her curiosity, but remained careful not to spend too much time staring—didn’t want to get herself worked up again. Occasionally, Jonas looked as if he had something to say, but each time he closed his mouth before giving whatever thought he had a voice.

Adaklies passed the time wishing she had something to drink. While Jonas slept, she tried to ignite her drekhel again, but the attempt gave her nothing but the taste of ash and the question of why she kept trying.

Two days after Jonas’s and Adaklies’s argument, the warden showed her face and, like last time, wasn’t in the best spirits. There was no cage kicking, no growling, just silence as she opened up both their cages and jabbed a finger, pointing to the ground outside.

Jonas and Adaklies exchanged a glance before leaving the cages. Adaklies stretched her arms to the sky, sighing as she gave her back the best stretch it’d had in ages. Jonas did the same.

Adaklies expected shackles next, but the warden had none.

“You’re being released,” she said. “Follow me.”

“Did Greye—” started Jonas.

“The general only told me to release you,” said the warden, then started walking.

The two followed her through what felt like a maze of tents, soldiers, and hills. Their journey wasn’t as short as Adaklies expected, but eventually they made it to the edge of camp.

The warden gestured them out. “Enjoy your freedom. I suggest you not test the general’s generosity.”

“You’re just going to miss us,” said Adaklies.

“Nor my patience.” She locked eyes with Adaklies.

Jonas took a step, paused, then marched away without a word. Adaklies gave the warden a little wave then trailed him, a skip to her step.

They dove straight into the forest, following a fresh path likely forged by the army itself. It didn’t take long for them to break sight of the camp and with a few minutes more its clamour faded as well. After glancing backward to make sure they were alone, Adaklies hurried up to Jonas and tapped his shoulder. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“Not interested in talking right now.”

“But Greyemeid letting us go should be encouraging.”

“I am not sure. I figured she would let us go either way, but if she were to accept my offer, I would have thought she’d done so personally. Or at least something other than just dumping us outside the camp.” His face fell. “This feels like an answer. The one I did not want.”

“I think it’s a little early to give up hope,” said Adaklies. “I mean, think of all the attention she would’ve gathered personally escorting a couple prisoners free.”

“I guess… I am still not sure.” His inflection put little hope in his words.

“You should listen to your friend, dear.”

Adaklies and Jonas’ eyes snapped to the source of the voice.

A black dragon clad in ornate armor was leaning against a tree, watching them. Her smug grin and crossed arms gave Adaklies the impression she was quite enjoying herself. But there was something more to it as well. An unbreakable confidence.

Adaklies’s first thought was that it was odd to see a dragon in real armor. Polished metal protected her chest, shoulders, and thighs, but the rest was a mix of softer, more flexible leather and cloth. No tears, little wear, and there was a certain gleam to it.

“Greyemeid!” said Jonas.

He stepped forward but stopped himself from anything more.

“You always were an observant one,” She pushed away from the tree and approached the pair. “But my prison is not the best place to contact me from.”

“Lack of time lead to some improvisation,” said Jonas.

Greyemeid looked Adaklies up and down, scrutinizing Adaklies’s face before speaking. “And you’re his new traveling partner. Adaklies Grenekk.”

Adaklies flinched.

“You’ve got an interesting bounty on you. Attempting to falsely claim the bounty on the Mother? Quite bold, especially for a dragon.”

“Pleased to meet you too, general,” said Adaklies. “I see you’re taken with half-wit, here.”

Greyemeid’s smile hardened. “Do not so casually insult my partner in front of me.” She gave Jonas a sidelong glance. “Even if your assessment isn’t entirely wrong.”

Jonas blushed.

“So,” said Adaklies. “No guards or anything like that.”

“No need.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Greyemeid’s smile faded. “Now, how exactly did you meet Jonas?”

Adaklies shrugged. “Same as you heard.”

“The two of you met in a bar over drinks, then? That doesn’t sound all that encouraging for you, Jonas. If that is the full story, however, why are you still with him? Why not simply tell him where to go?”

Adaklies sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but she could feel Greyemeid’s iron focus still pressing down on her.

Jonas coughed. “So, Greyemeid, I take it you coming out here means…”

The weight of the general’s gaze vanished. “It does,” she said.

He brightened up a bit. “Good. I mean, thank you. It means a lot.”

“I said I loved you, Jonas, and I believe it when you say you do as well. Though you do have the oddest ways of showing it sometimes.”

He nodded.

“Am I the only one concerned that the disappearance of Ir’s First Army’s general might not be the best for us?” said Adaklies.

“I’ve prepared contingencies,” said Greyemeid. “There are many officers I can trust in the army. They will maintain a normality long enough.”

“Sorry if I’m not entirely convinced the head of an active war campaign can disappear on a whim,” said Adaklies. “I’m not interested in the attention any search will bring us.”

“I find it quite amusing that someone with clearly limited logistical experience is so comfortable questioning my ability to execute. If nothing else will sway you, realize that, by the time we are done, either Livoetian will be dead or we will. In both cases, your fretting is irrelevant. Now let’s be off to the Dragon’s Horns. And the Mother.”


	2. Chapter 2

The trek taxed Adaklies’s patience, not her stamina.

She kept her distance from Greyemeid. The general seemed to know a little too much and her eyes were too observant, like she was soaking in all Adaklies’s subtle tells and assembling them into some kind of weapon. People like that were too concerned with their own complexity.

Over her shoulder, Adaklies saw Jonas and Greyemeid talking. There was no hugging, no touching, and Greyemeid’s stride kept a careful distance. Adaklies wondered if Jonas realized it.

As their voices drifted over to her, she was tempted to slow her step and listen in, but that wasn’t worth getting into another tangle with Greyemeid today. Instead, Adaklies kept her attention on the trail ahead. The army’s fresh trail soon diverted from their destination and the three were back in the wilderness.

Once the path cleared up a bit, Adaklies took wing to confirm their destination. Barely visible in the haze of the horizon was the distinctly-shaped mountains they were headed for: the Dragon’s Horns. The mark the Mother had left on the world upon the advent of the dragon race. No one knew for sure why’d she done it.

They would soon get a chance to ask her herself, if they wanted.

They traveled at a strained pace until nightfall. Adaklies had already laid out her bedroll and started setting up a firepit by the time Greyemeid and Jonas caught up.

“I was a little worried since we didn’t see you all day,” said Jonas, “But you kept leaving tracks to follow so I figured you were fine.”

Adaklies gave him a blank look. “I’m perfectly fine looking after myself.”

“I—ah, never mind. Let’s get a fire going.”

Adaklies stood up. “I’ve got the kindling, just need to find a few larger pieces of dry wood.”

Before she could take so much as a step toward the nearby trees, Greyemeid spoke up. “I’ll help you. Jonas, can you get our tent?”

“Sure,” he said, clearly used to following her orders.

Once they had wandered out of earshot and Jonas was busy with the tent, Adaklies wasn’t surprised when Greyemeid started talking.

“Jonas tells me you can be trusted.” The dead leaves crunched beneath Greyemeid’s steps as she surveyed the ground with Adaklies. “Jonas is also more gullible than he would admit. Who are you with?”

“You think I’m a spy?”

“There was surprisingly little information available on you. You were abruptly introduced into Jonas’s life and have clung onto it for a reason you’ve divulged to neither one of us. Your information on the Mother’s location is yet to be verified. While espionage might be presumptuous, with the given information, you must forgive me if that’s my first conclusion.”

How eloquently said. She detached herself from the facts, treating them if they were sled hounds pulling her unwitting self toward the present conclusion. Like her words were a shield blame could only bounce off of.

Adaklies hated it.

“I’m with myself,  _ general _ . Your sources didn’t come up with anything because there’s nothing notable about me. What you see is what you get.”

“Then why are you here, Adaklies?”

“Maybe I was bored.”

“While I may understand the power of a dragon chasing her whims, one does not go hunting the demon queen on one.”

Adaklies’s face twisted in thought. That sounded familiar. Where had she heard it before?

“I don’t care what you think I do or don’t do on whims. What I am is here and, until we’ve found the Mother, that is what I’ll be. How about instead of scrutinizing me like Jonas’s overprotective nanny, you grab some wood and do something useful.”

Greyemeid’s glare sparked. While she said nothing more, she did click her tongue, sure to be loud enough for Adaklies to hear.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s halfway decent at looking after himself. He doesn’t need you hounding everyone that crosses his path,” said Adaklies.

Snatching one last piece of wood off the ground, she stomped back to the firepit.  _ The Dragon’s Horns can’t come soon enough. _

Jonas crawled out of the tent he’d just finished setting up, sharing an encouraging but somewhat forced smile with Adaklies. “We made a pretty good distance today.”

“Could’ve been better,” she said.

Shrugging, he walked over to the now plentiful pile of kindling. He squatted, reaching in his pack for flint and steel, but paused, looking at Adaklies. “Do you think you could…?”

“Ask the general,” she said, lying down.

“Ah.” He looked up at Greyemeid. “Don’t worry about it, I can get it.”

“It’s fine, dear.”

Instead of lighting the pile with a blast of breath, however, she took the flint and steel from Jonas and set their fire the more traditional way.

“Out of curiosity, why are we not flying to the Dragon’s Horns? You are both dragons—”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” said Adaklies.

He shot her a glare and continued, “—and while I know I cannot fly, I figured you—the both of you, that is—would be capable of carrying me.”

Greyemeid pat Jonas on the shoulder. “I believe that’s not something that would happen except in an emergency.”

“Why?”

“A person is a heavy load for two dragons. Furthermore, I do not suffer other dragons carrying you.”

“I appreciate the concern, but I hardly think Adaklies would drop me.”

“You are mine. Not hers. Nor ours. Mine alone.”

“So dragons don’t…”

“ _ I _ don’t share.”

“I see.”

When neither Greyemeid nor Adaklies picked up the conversation from there, Adaklies could see Jonas struggling to find something else to bring up. He tried to hide the quick looks he gave Adaklies and Greyemeid, but the man was never as subtle as he thought he was.

“What’s the Mother of Dragons like?” he asked.

“Strong,” said Adaklies, “Tall. Beautiful.”

“Overwhelming,” added Greyemeid, “Among other things.”

“So you  _ have _ met her,” said Adaklies.

“Once.” A smile grew on Greyemeid’s serene face.

“There are a hundred stories of you doing the most outrageous things. Some say you defeated her in combat, but we both know that never happened.”

“True.”

“What drove you to even challenge her?”

“We were to break through a pass and catch up with the bulk of the Second Army on a rush offensive. The Mother was at the pass and refused us entry. The next nearest path was days away and would’ve ruined our plans. I knew better than to have the entire battalion challenge her and risk significant losses, so I challenged her to single combat.”

“Hmm,” said Jonas.

Both dragons looked at him.

“Sorry for interrupting, it’s just that it’s so rare to hear you talk about your time as an officer. Before you were a general.”

“You rarely ask,” said Greyemeid.

“Maybe I should try to ask more often, then.”

Greyemeid laid her arm over Jonas’s shoulder and pulled him in.

He accepted her affection, his posture relaxing as he leaned against her. A second later, however, he winced. While Greyemeid may have appeared endearing at a glance, Adaklies noticed her tail had snuck around Jonas’s leg and was squeezing with a rather unforgiving tension. It was revolting, really.

Speaking of the Mother reminded Adaklies of her drekhel. The fiery, sinister blade that eluded Adaklies still.

Adaklies laid out her hand, opened just enough to hold a hilt, then closed her eyes and concentrated. The memory fresh in her mind, she concentrated on the heat. The way everything fried in a single instant, a single breath. The intensity of the Mother’s glare. The tingling on Adaklies’s skin. The void of power right before the blade appeared and the abundance the moment after.

Adaklies breathed in.

She brought up the heat, the inner fire. Forged that fire to steel. Saw a blade, wicked and fierce, in her hand. Felt the weight and closed her claw around it.

And exhaled.

A puff of smoke and taste of ash filled her mouth and she quickly spat it out. Fortunately, she’d been able to train herself not to cough any more. She opened her eyes, frowning at her still-empty grasp.

When she raised her head, she found Greyemeid’s attention squarely on her. While Jonas was still comfortable on her shoulder, staring at the fire, Greyemeid was in another world entirely. Her eyes were locked on Adaklies’ as if anchored there by some invisible force.

Adaklies swallowed and turned away. Whatever Greyemeid was thinking, she wanted none of it.

**

Such it was all the way up to the Dragon’s Horns. When the massive stone horns finally loomed above them, Adaklies put her hands on her hips, admiring the sight. Jonas walked up to one, placing his hand on it. The base of the horns were several times wider than him, making him look much smaller from a distance.

“It is smooth,” he said.

“Interesting,” said Adaklies. She’d figured time had worn them down to some extent, but apparently not.

“I’m not familiar with the process the Mother used to create them,” said Greyemeid, touching one herself. “But the craftsmanship has endured. Where is the Mother, Adaklies?”

“Not sure where to go from this point,” said Adaklies. “She just said if I wanted to find her to come here.”

“Very well,” said Greyemeid. “We shall wait.”

“Mmmhmm,” said Adaklies. Part of her wanted to make a snide comment, but she’d been enjoying the lack of attention.

Jonas busied himself with exploring the area and Greyemeid followed. Adaklies took wing, settling down on one of the horns at the curve. Miles of forest stretched out in a verdant blanket, clear as day from her perch.

It was nice to lean back and let her legs dangle and sway in the wind like branches. She could see why the Mother might choose to live here. It was peaceful, quiet, and away from the rest of the world. Adaklies wouldn’t be able to stand it more than a few days, but she could appreciate the need to get away. Looking over the mountain range to the north, she drifted off for a moment in thought. Home was right on the other side.

Blinking, her attention diverted and she looked down at Jonas and Greyemeid. Greyemeid was certainly more relaxed around Jonas compared to when they’d first set off. Jonas, too.

Adaklies couldn’t help but wonder what they were saying.

**

It was difficult, Jonas decided. Far too difficult. Hardly fair, either. But he’d been putting it off for the entire trip and with the Mother hopefully about to join their party, his chances to do it would only become sparser.

“Dear,” said Greyemeid.

Jonas looked at her.

“Please say whatever it is you’re thinking about saying before you choke on it.”

“Ah.” She did always seem to be able to read his mind. Or was he just that easy to read? “I’m sorry.”

Greymeid leaned in, putting her claws behind her back. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry for asking from you what I did in the way I did. In retrospect, it was hasty. And harsh.”

Tilting her head, she focused her gaze in on Jonas. He wanted to look away from her, but kept himself steady. It felt like it was taking forever for her to respond. 

“Yes, it was,” she said.

“I was focused on Livoetian, on the task, and convinced myself this was the best solution. I did not realize what I was asking of you.”

Pacing around to his other side, Greyemeid scratched her chin. “No, you didn’t. This is very strange, coming from you.”

“Is it really so weird for me to apologize?”

“Not that.” She sighed. “Jonas, while you have many wonderful qualities, self-cognizance is  _ not  _ one of them. I’d come to accept it. Yet here you are apologizing for something I would not expect you to give a second thought to.”

“If I’m being honest, I did not. Originally.”

“Hmm?”

“Adaklies had to point it out.”

“Adaklies.” Greyemeid’s eyes narrowed. “Really.” Her tone was getting dangerous.

“Back in the camp while we were still prisoners, she brought me around.” He tapped his cheek. “With more than a little strength behind it.”

Greyemeid chortled. Chortled! A smile grew on Jonas’s face, but it died as soon as Greyemeid’s did.

“I’ll accept any punishment you have for me,” he said, lowering his head.

Crossing her arms, Greyemeid gave his hunched over figure an unamused frown. “Punishment is fitting for insubordinate officers, not my partner. But you will tell me where this haphazard idea of yours came from and what sort of merit you saw in it.”

“I’m not sure exactly where it came from. It was not from any one event, if that is what you are wondering. I thought it was simple, direct, and something we could accomplish quickly. And I’m sick of us not having a plan on how to figure this out.”

“You always had the choice to join me.”

Jonas’s expression soured. “I gave up fighting for Aezerin for you, but I will not accept Ir continuing to fight this war.”

“You’d be accepting me, not the war.”

“And the fact you are actively working to advance it. I’m not so bright-eyed to think the two are separable. We have had this talk before.”

“You know I don’t want this war to go on any longer than it needs to.”

“Then end it. Retreat back across the Vallivun. Send a request for a cease-fire.”

“Livoetian rejected the proposal.”

“Then tell me, Greyemeid, why are you fighting for her? Because if you do want to be with me, you want peace, and that is quarter the Demon Queen will never give.”

“Realize that my presence here has effectively doubled as my resignation. Or betrayal, as Livoetian will see it.”

“Then why—”

“Sit.”

Jonas sat.

Greyemeid clasped her claws behind her back. “Thirty-eight years ago my hometown was burned to the ground. Marauders from Aezerin’s border guard. An entirely human force with nothing but disdain for the monsters of Ir. Hundreds died.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jonas.

“Don’t be,” said Greyemeid. “The offenders earned their due that very day. Livoetian showed up too late to save the town, but not too late to punish each and every one of those who dared to attack her people. She wasn’t queen yet, but when she showed up, a savior who’d taken down a force of hundreds, it was understandable that many of us joined her. Border life was hard back then. The capital, Malivus, was so far away that Ir rarely sent support. Ir hardly had the capital to maintain its cities, never mind its borders.”

“That sounds like the kind of excuse an neglectful governor would come up with,” said Jonas.

Greyemeid smiled. “You understand. For months, she continued her border enforcement tour, fortifying towns, cleaning out Aezerin deployments, and arranging logistics. We felt useful. In retrospect, the whole campaign may have been a simple vie to accrue soldiers and support, but she was never one much for politics; her strength had always given her what she needed. I still believe she was truly there to help.”

“And when did she become queen?”

“Not long after. I was an officer and Livoetian included me among many others to participate in the raid that took the capital. Knowing how powerful she was, she may have not even needed us, but back then, she was adept at making people feel like a relevant part of something bigger.”

“What happened next?”

Greyemeid waved off his question, taking a seat and scooting up next to him. “It matters not. What’s important is that you know why I fought for her. She was a dreamer. Convictive. Genuine, though rough around the edges. Still dreadful at politics.”

“I can see the appeal,” he said. “Of fighting for her.”

Greyemeid peered at him, hopeful. There was something he was supposed to say here. But how was he to know what?

He went with the first thing that came to his head. “I understand the weight of your decision to join me.”

Greyemeid ran a claw gently through his hair. “You are quite hopeless without me.”

He shot her a sarcastic look. “Really? I think I managed just fine, given all the assassins you sent after me.”

“On that subject: Adaklies may have been right about something else. Livoetian won’t long be blind to my desertion. She will send assassins for us. She may even seek us out herself.”

“Then we will just have to kill them. And if she comes to us, our job becomes easier.”

“I am telling you to remain cautious. Do not underestimate Livoetian.”

“I know.”

Smiling, Greyemeid kissed him on the head and he decided he’d be happy with that.

**

Seeing Greyemeid kiss Jonas, Adaklies rolled her eyes and started looking for something else worthy of her attention. She quickly found it.

A figure was approaching from the north. Whoever it was, they were far too short to be the Mother. A cloak prevented Adaklies from making out many details, but there was a touch of familiarity to their step. Grunting, Adaklies got to her feet and leapt to the ground

If the Mother was here, he would be too.

He broke into the clearing and the second the sun was on his face, Adaklies grinned.

“Folsomar!” she yelled.

Pausing, he took in the sight of Adaklies. And grumbled.

“Adaklies.”

She jogged up to him, the grin still plain on her face. Crossing his arms, he grimaced at her. They held that stalemate, apprehension against enthusiasm, each trying to infect the other and break them down.

For the tiniest breath, Adaklies’s expression flickered. What if he’d heard the accusations? The bounty on Adaklies? The lies about her claiming the Mother’s bounty? But just her face started to ache from the grin, Folsomar broke down and smiled.

“Been a bit, hasn’t it?” And, without another word, hugged her.

Adaklies broke.

Pure instinct saved the hug and her arms went around him but her mind froze. Panicked. She was expecting a quip, a glare, or some kind of dry humor. Dismissal, at worse. But a hug? Who was this man?

Folsomar released her, putting his hands on his hips and nodding to Jonas and Greyemeid, who had just walked up. “Who’s the dead weight?” he asked.

Adaklies scrambled to catch up with herself. “This, uh, this is Jo… Jonas. And Greyemeid, his partner. Greyemeid, Jonas, this is Folsomar, the Mother’s husband.”

Folsomar tilted his head. “ _ The _ Greyemeid?”

Greyemeid extended a claw. “Yes, it’s a pleasure.”

“Of course,” said Folsomar. He took her claw and gave it a good shake, then turned to Jonas, nodding to Adaklies. “She dragging you along?”

Jonas laughed. Cautiously, Adaklies noticed. “No, I’m actually dragging her along for this adventure.”

“Really?” Folsomar shrugged. “Guess I’ve got no room to talk.”

“It involves your wife,” said Adaklies.

“It always does. Welp, can’t speak for Istoladrek as for whether or not she’ll be open to your request, but if you’ve got Adaklies with you, at least she’ll listen.”

Adaklies saw Greyemeid flinch. She probably wasn’t used to someone using the Mother’s name so casually. Or maybe it was because she was realizing the only reason the Mother would hear her out was Adaklies.

“Follow me and I’ll take you to our place,” said Folsomar.

As they fell in behind Folsomar, Greyemeid shot Adaklies a curious glance. “So, Folsomar, it seems you and the Mother have some history with Adaklies.”

_ Can that dragon not let anything lie? _

“Oh, yeah. She helped me out a couple years back. Well, both of us, now that I think about it.”

“How?” Jonas piped up this time.

“It was more… introspective help. And she looked over the Mother and I while we were incapacitated.”

“Incapacitated? What on earth could have possibly incapacitated the Mother and you?” Greyemeid asked.

“Ourselves.”

“You fought in Keian, then,” said Greyemeid.

“Sure did, though most of the circulating stories about exactly what happened there are nothing more than hearsay.”

“Speaking of circulating stories, you are aware your companion Adaklies has a sizable bounty on her capture?”

Folosomar laughed. Not a soft laugh, but a full-bellied one, and he clapped along with his amusement. “I did hear about that! Course, anyone who’s known Adaklies for any amount of time would know that’s complete hogwash. My wife and I had a good time trying to guess why the district adjudicator would come up with a story like that.”

Adaklies’s vision got fuzzy. Her arms started floating away too, so she clasped her hands and shoved them behind her back, else they reach out and hug Folsomar to death.

“And what did you settle on?” Greyemeid asked.

“Money. Probably heard my wife was defeated and didn’t want to pay out the bounty. I mean, a thousand gold is a hell of a lot. They probably posted it never expecting anyone to be crazy enough to try to claim it.”

Adaklies tried to ignore Greyemeid’s iron gaze on her.

Folsomar led the three of them up the slopes of a nearby mountain. The trek was a bit longer than Adaklies expected, taking them through aggressive terrain before they arrived at the mouth of a cave hewn out of the side of the mountain.

“Welcome to our home,” said Folsomar.

The entourage walked inside.

Adaklies’s first question was whether or not the Mother had hollowed out the entire mountain. The place was  _ massive _ . A few, no,  _ several _ dragons could fly around in the vast emptiness with ease. Smooth stone carved out the bowl-like ceiling, a ceiling so high up Adaklies missed a breath. The walls were crafted similarly, but hewn with impressions of many different things. Swords, wings, goblets, tails, claws, gold… opulence, really.

Jonas whistled.

“Likewise,” said Adaklies.

“It does have a touch of Mother’s… ardor, I‘ll say,” said Greyemeid.

“Well, when you’re finished gawking, come along,” said Folsomar.

Adaklies didn’t think she’d ever be able to regard a room like this with the sort of dismissal Folsomar had. Yes, he lived here, but even after seeing this every day for years, Adaklies had a feeling she’d still be impressed.

As the four made their way across the cavern, Adaklies realized there was more to the cave. Two tunnels curved away from the cavern. And the main cavern wasn’t just spectacular ceilings and walls. A grid of chests, displays, and lounging furniture filled up a fair portion of the floor including an extraordinarily long dining table. Adaklies appraised what she could as she walked by, but in truth there was too much to take in.

“Is this not a bit… lavish?” asked Jonas.

Of those who heard his question, Adaklies did the worst job of covering up her laugh.

“This is the Dragon Mother’s dwelling. This is precisely what one should expect. In truth, I’d be disappointed if it was anything less,” said Greyemeid.

Folsomar led them down one of the tunnels. It soon emptied out into a room that Adaklies could actually call reasonable. Somewhat. An extravagant bath to one side and luxury furniture on the other all culminated in the plush palatial bed overwhelming the room. But far more imposing than the furnishings was the dragon currently lounging upon them.

Adaklies’s impression of the Mother was both completely different and entirely the same as when she first laid eyes on her. Her broad wings and towering height pushed the rest of the world into the background. Her near-suffocating presence pressed down on Adaklies from all sides. Yet, her lackadaisical posture along the bed, lightly swishing tail, and the eyes she gave Folsomar were disarming. Almost mortal.

“I thought I heard more than one set of footsteps,” said the Mother. Her voice sang as flowy and illustrious as Adaklies remembered.

Folsomar made it to the bed and the Mother got up, giving him a kiss before standing. With their arms on each others’ backs, they walked up to the group. Folsomar’s average stature looked dwarfish next to the Mother.

Greyemeid kneeled at their approach. Adaklies went with an awkward bow.

“Adaklies,” said the Mother, smiling. “I welcome the sight of you once more.”

“Likewise,” said Adaklies.

“I see Folsomar does as well. You have given him a thorough teasing already?”

“Not yet,” said Adaklies.

“Don’t feel obligated,” said Folsomar.

“Nonsense.” The Mother rubbed Folsomar’s head. “You are at your best when at ends with a woman.”

“Oh? Is that why you never stop torturing me?” 

The two shared an all-too-sappy grin. Adaklies, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to find the right way to stand.

“Greyemeid. Many a year has passed since we crossed paths,” said the Mother. Neither her voice nor her face had the smile she’d given Adaklies.

“I am honored you remember me.” 

“Stand. I am not your commanding officer.”

“Thank you.”

Eyes narrowing, the Mother approached her, emphasizing the difference in their height. A claw drifted to Greyemeid’s chin and pointed her face upward at the Mother’s. “Many a year indeed.”

The Mother’s piercing gaze landed on Jonas. “And one I recognize not.”

He bowed. “Jonas. An honor to meet you.”

“Formal. But unnecessary.” The Mother offered a claw. “You are one of my Daughters not. A handshake will suffice.”

A tiny sliver of hesitance snatched his composure, but he took her hand anyways. The sweat dripping down his face told Adaklies the grip was a touch more than he was comfortable with, but his hand came away intact.

“Now,” said the Mother, sitting down on the bed beside Folsomar, “Speak, Adaklies. What is the nature of your visit?”

Adaklies thumbed Jonas. “I’m afraid he’s the mastermind here.”

The Mother cocked her head, turning to Jonas.

“I want to kill Livoetian. I need your help.”

“Yeesh. There’s gotta be a lot to unpack there,” said Folsomar.

“Continue,” said the Mother.

“There’s nothing more to it. I know I can’t do it without help.”

The Mother shook her head. “You misunderstand. Convince me. Preceding your arrival, my husband and I were enjoying a lovely time together, something I prefer over engaging one of the mightiest monsters alive for a cause I have aught of knowledge nor investment.”

“I mean to end the war. My cause is the life of my countrymen.”

The Mother gave him a look that spoke incredulity. “One may’st cut off the head, but war has been life for both those nations for some time. Naught are those who avoided its miasmatic touch. Passions run deep.”

“If the plan was to kill Livoetian and nothing more, yes. But if we killed her and replaced her with someone, someone the people would recognize and respect…”

“Indeed, Greyemeid is known of many and would be seen as a worthy successor, in spite of your means.” Her attention shifted to Greyemeid. “Speak, Daughter, what do you think of this? You have been fighting for Livoetian many a year.”

“It is complicated. Livoetian offers Ir and the monster lands a powerful leader. They have advanced the front lines considerably since the war began. Clearer laws have been enacted and enforced with minimal disruption. However, Livoetian has also allowed the bureaucracy of many internal organizations to bloat out of control due to her disinterest. Corruption is beginning to take root and the farther one travels from the capital, the worse it becomes.”

Her voice echoed throughout the room a moment before the Mother replied. “You have relayed the full of it?”

“Yes.”

“My Daughters may deceive themselves as much as they wish, but direct that deception not toward your Mother,” she said, her voice coming out cold.

“I apologize.” Greyemeid bowed deeply. “Jonas will not accept my continued participation in the war. My decision was between peace and separation. I have chosen peace.”

“Aww,” said Folsomar. He hugged the Mother tighter and gave her a warm smile which she returned.

“Whilst I recognize love as a worthy cause,” said the Mother, “this love is your own to fight for. Not mine.”

“Countless lives would be saved,” said Jonas.

“Think not that I value lives as naught, but Ir and Aezerin have chosen this path for themselves and my care is first for myself and my own. Thou’st both young and capable. Greyemeid herself is the head of an army. Surely one can find the resources and aid one needs to defeat Livoetian without my involvement?”

Greyemeid shook her head. “An army would be the worst approach to defeating Livoetian. Not only does it allow her to effectively mobilize her own armies against it, her specialty is dealing with numbers. A few capable fighters would be much more potent than many passable ones. That aside, I cannot say for sure if my army would join me in marching against Livoetian.”

“True, Livoetian’s Castle would slaughter an army. But you have come straight to me, to the Mother of Dragons. Are there no other worthy fighters?”

“You’re by far our best option,” said Jonas.

Folsomar chuckled. “Keep flattering her, she loves i—ah!” He hopped up, holding his rear. “Those claws can  _ pinch _ , woman!”

Adaklies crossed her arms and looked away. One second this was a diplomatic negotiation, the next a circus.

“Thou hast a fine cause, Jonas, Greyemeid,” said the Mother. “I find it most touching to see my Daughters working to change what suits them not and I cannot deny that the prospect of helping a dragon to the highest seat of Ir has its appeal. But this conversation has led me to another question: Adaklies: why are you here?”

Clasping her claws behind her back, Adaklies shrugged. “Bored, I guess?”

The Mother strode toward her. “Truly, your answer is boredom?” She eyed Adaklies, pacing slow circles around her.

_ Goddess, I feel so small next to her! _

“Neither Jonas nor Greyemeid mentioned a single connection to you. Nor do their motivations seem to intersect with your own. Taking a country? My instinct says that appeals to you not.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. Adaklies felt a bead of sweat drip off her chin. She tried to meet the Mother’s gaze and failed.

“Boredom can drive people to do some pretty crazy things,” said Adaklies.

“I know. I’ve had my bouts of it. But you are not one to find inspiration within it.”

“I understand why you’d think that, Mother, but we didn’t know each other for that long.”

“Why do you maneuver about the question? Have either your compatriots helped you somehow? Perhaps you are returning a favor?”

“No, that’s not it. I guess...” Adaklies wracked her brain. “I’m here to prove I’m not the criminal everyone thinks I am. Or, at least, give them something else to remember me by.”

“Hmm. Understandable.” Giving Adaklies a knowing grin, the Mother turned on a heel and returned to Folsomar. She nodded to him. “I am willing.”

Adaklies and Jonas exchanged glances.

“Great!” said Jonas. “We should—”

The Mother raised a claw. “However, the say is not mine alone.”

Jonas, Greyemeid, and Adaklies all turned to Folsomar.

“Of course you put it on me,” he said, grumbling. Adaklies could see his blush, however. “You’re really with these two?” he asked Adaklies.

“I guess so,” she said.

“You ‘guess’...” Folsomar tucked his lips in. “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”

“When have I ever made your life easier?”

The Mother chuckled.

Folsomar looked between Jonas and Greyemeid, thinking. The gears in his head churned in a stilted silence, dragging each second along as a cripple would his feet. His eyes flicked over to Adaklies again and, for just that moment, saw through her.

“Alright.”

Jonas leaned forward, waiting for the other foot to drop. It didn’t. And that drove Adaklies even further into madness. There was something missing here, and she hadn’t a clue what it was.

“Thank you. I have planned for us to head due east to keep us south of most of the battlefields. Once we cross the border into Ir proper, we can head north to the capital.” He looked at Greyemeid. “That should avoid all the army movements, correct?”

“As far as my knowledge reaches,” said Greyemeid. “Livoetian may already be aware and adjusting, however.”

“It is the best we have to go on. Tonight we can—”

“Tonight,” said the Mother, “We eat and we rest. Ir’s capital beckons from weeks away. Best start on the right foot.”

“Fair enough,” said Jonas.

Folsomar and the Mother left the room, chatting with one another about what meal to prepare. Once out of earshot, Jonas walked up to Greyemeid and put his hand on her shoulder. “One step closer.”

“Indeed.” Her body loosened when Jonas touched her and she pulled him close. “You’ve much more a past with those two than you divulged,” she said to Adaklies.

Adaklies narrowed her eyes at Greyemeid. Another implied question. Eventually she was just going to start ignoring them. “I guess they just held more gratitude than I thought. I didn’t lie about anything, though.” She jabbed a finger at Greyemeid. “And would it kill you to get off my ass every now and then?”

Jonas tugged at Greyemeid, who met eyes with him.

“Very well.”

Jonas smiled. “Thanks. Now, I think we should go check out what we’re going to eat tonight. I’m hungry.”

The meal was quickly ready. Greyemeid and Jonas chatted while Adaklies watched her hosts go back and forth, cooking and bantering. It was simultaneously endearing and sickening at the same time. She didn’t know why she forced herself to watch it.

Dinner was served on the ostentatiously-long table. The five of them hardly used up any of it, but from the wear Adaklies figured it was the most use the table had ever seen.

Folsomar started the dinner conversation between the crunch of chewing and gulps of satisfaction. “What have you been up to these last few years?” he asked Adaklies.

Adaklies immediately stuffed her mouth, giving herself a moment to digest the question. Swallowing, she said, “Getting by.”

“I’m surprised I’d have to  _ pry _ to get an answer out of you. What does ‘getting by’ involve?”

“Errands,” said Adaklies. She wasn’t thrilled about going into detail, but even she knew there was a limit to how rude you could be to a host. “Killing wolves preying on livestock, hunting down petty criminals, gruntwork, the like.”

“Really? Sounds like you stayed local. Keian?”

“Yeah.”

“Why no bounties?”

Adaklies took a deep breath. “Because along with that bounty on my head, they blacklisted me as a bounty hunter. No one would honor any bounty I tried to turn in and believe me, I tried. More than once.”

“What happened when you tried? They just refused to pay you?”

Adaklies grumbled and poked at her food, nodding.

“That’s terrible,” said Jonas.

“I should’ve realized sooner. Least I learned that lesson quick.”

“There is a minimum respect people should show others. Especially people that you just helped,” said Jonas.

Adaklies almost smiled. She would’ve agreed with him before, too, but she was just another bounty hunter, another nameless face to those people. Why would they treat her with any preference?

“You didn’t deserve to be treated like that,” said Folsomar.

Teeth grinding, Adaklies stared at her food. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t him who got to decide that. The world had made up its mind about Adaklies a long time ago.

Three clicks on the dinner table from a dragon claw everyone’s attention. “We have a mighty task before us,” said the Mother. “Livoetian is a Pillar.”

Adaklies looked around to see recognition from everyone, making her the only one confused about the Mother’s meaning. “What is a Pillar?” she asked.

“They are the four mightiest nonhumans of the world. Benethia, the angel; Corriva, the kitsune; Livoetian, the lilim; and I. Benethia is ‘The Watchful Guardian’ and heads the official church of Aezerin, making her the de-facto ruler of the country. Corriva deigns to secrecy. That is a mere half of the story of the Pillars, however. We are typically averse to divulging more.”

“Given you brought it up, I’m assuming you’re willing to now,” said Jonas.

The Mother nodded. “The power of a Pillar comes straight from the sister god Qia. After defeating her brother Qos in the War of Conception, Qia took him to the center of the planet, swallowing him thus. Even today, Qos is held captive at the center of the planet within Qia, though she must use the greatness of her power to restrain him. With what she yet holds, she governs the living.

“But that be not the end of it. Qia let her power—tiny scraps to her, but bountiful wells to us—come forth in four particular beings. I was one. Benethia, another. The two remaining monsters… I shall let memory alone hold their names. Livoetian and Corriva were not the first to hold their power, but Qia’s might must always manifest in four monsters and four monsters exact.”   
“How long ago were the first Pillars created?” said Jonas.

“Long enough,” said the Mother.

Adaklies stared ahead, her face blank. She’d never given too much thought to gods. Did this story change anything? Should she start following Qia’s faith? Did Qia herself care? Resting her head in her hands, she sighed. This kinda stuff wasn’t her territory.

“Why did you decide to share this with us?” Greyemeid asked the Mother. “I can see its relevance, but at the same time, it doesn’t really change our objective.”

“Because you mustn't underestimate Livoetian. One might think her naught more than another powerful monster. You especially, cognizant her personally, might somehow be deluded by the thought she shares some sort of normality with you. I assure you: she shares naught. You are snowflakes; she an avalanche. When time comes and we must fight her, there will be a moment where you will be forced to come to terms with this. If you are able to accept it and fight in its spite, you will live. If not, you will hesitate.

“And Livoetian is not someone one can hesitate against.”

Adaklies found it comical that the Mother’s gruesome warning bugged her less than the realization Qia and Qos were real. It was true that Livoetian was a terrifying opponent, the strongest she’d ever faced, and death was almost certain if she failed, but that was that. An ordinary dragon wouldn’t be swinging the scales of that fight.

Thankfully, the conversation steered away from Qia, Qos, and Livoetian. As their plates emptied and the candles burned down, the five of them spoke of livelier things. Or stories, myths, and jokes. Jonas had plenty of tales from his time as a mercenary. Greyemeid had wild stories as a colored soldier over the years and Folsomar and the Mother bounced back and forth off each other like they were both one half of a single talker. Adaklies listened. And that was all she did. Nothing she’d done was worth sharing.

Those grander fates weren't for her.

**

Adaklies was the first to wake the next morning. Finding the cave silent and not wanting to disturb anyone else, she wandered outside, found a seat and watched dawn swallow the sky orange. A shallow wind pushed up from the base of the mountain, washing over her and whistling across the cave entrance, using it like a flute.

It was mornings like this that she thought too much.

Last night’s conversation pinged around her head. Livoetian seemed more like a mountain to conquer now more than ever. Adaklies hadn’t made any progress toward summoning her drekhel, assuming she even would at some point.

“Alone out here?”

Folsomar emerged from the cave, taking a seat next to Adaklies.

“I was.”

“You know,” said Folsomar, watching the horizon, “Istoladrek told me she doesn’t have much appreciation for sunrises and sunsets any more. Seen ‘em all in a thousand ways in a thousand places. But when I get her in a high-up spot with a nice clear view at just the right time, something tells me that’s a lie.”

“Would she want you telling someone else that?”

“If I did it in front of her, she might roll her eyes. Blush if the mood was right. But no, she wouldn’t mind. Especially you.”

Adaklies had a hard time imagining the Mother blushing. “You two are being way too appreciative of what I did. I gave you and Mother a place to sleep for a couple nights—that’s all. I didn’t even feed you.”

“Is that what you think? Anyways, how much appreciation we show is up to us, isn’t it? And I think we’re showing just enough.”

“I have a question for you. It might seem a little abrupt.”

“Oh yeah? Go for it.”

“What the hell happened with you?”

Folsomar blinked. “What?”

“You were a total grump last time I met you. Getting you to do anything was like pulling teeth! Yet here you are, making jokes, smiling at everything, playing around with the Mother, and letting her play around with you? I don’t get it.”

“I was at the end of a very long time without my wife, and you were threatening to complicate things. So I guess I was a little grumpy. But I’ve had her all to myself for these past couple years now and I’ve really enjoyed it.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Folsomar smirked. “Jealous?”

“Go to Hell.”

“Alright, my turn. What the hell happened with _ you _ ?”

Adaklies mulled over the question. “Life showed me a few harsh truths.”

“I heard. But don’t you think that’s a bit weak an excuse?”

Adaklies gaped at him.  _ An  _ excuse _? Had he not heard her at all last night? _ “What exactly are you talking about?”

“Adaklies, last time we met, you were planning on taking on my wife. And enthusiastic about it. That’s not the kind of person—the kind of dragon—I would expect to be hampered by a few money-hungry vermin and hellscum clients.”

“A  _ few _ ? Folsomar, it was almost everyone I met! Everyone who knew my face couldn’t run to the guard fast enough! It took a good ten bloody scraps and twice as many broken bones before they stopped bugging me, and they still get ideas every now and then!”

Folsomar just crossed his arms and smiled.

Face going red, Adaklies charged on. “And don’t get me started on all the rejected bounties. I lost out on a good fifty gold before I learned not to complete the bounty before working something out with the client first.”

Folsomar laughed.

Adaklies was soaring past fuming at this point. “What the hell are you laughing about!? Because I’m sure as demons not trying to make a joke!”

Scratching his temple, Folsomar considered his reply a moment. “I’m not really sure what I could say to show you what I mean other than you’re still exactly the dragon I remember while being nothing like her at the same time.”

“Real helpful.”

“When did you start caring about how other people saw you? What they thought about you?”

“Since always? Folsomar, I have to care, I interact with people. They pay me.”

“You didn’t use to. Or, at least, if you did care, you didn’t let it change how you acted. Let me ask—how did your first interaction with Jonas go? He seems like an upstanding guy.”

“An up _ tight _ guy, maybe. I wanted to punch him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Of course I didn’t! The guards already have enough reason to come after me again, I didn’t need to give them more! Plus, who punches someone they just met?”

“And when did he change your mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, here you both are, with him thoroughly un-punched, as far as I can tell.”

“He didn’t earn the punch until later.”

“Heh, I’d like to hear about that one. But later. Don’t deflect.”

Adaklies shrugged. “I dunno. He had a good argument.”

Folsomar raised a finger. “There. There it is. Think about that. And tell me when you have the answer.”

A new voice entered the conversation. “The answer to what?”

The two turned around to see Jonas stretching and walking out of the cave. “Heard you two chatting. Up pretty early.” He put his hands on his hips and looked out toward the dawn. “Nice morning.”

Folsomar laid a hand on Adaklies’s shoulder and let it linger for a moment before getting up. “It is, but I think it’s about time we got everyone up and moving. We’ll want to get going bright and early.”

Jonas nodded. “I’ll get Greyemeid, then.”

Adaklies’s eyes followed Folsomar until he disappeared back into the cave. How Jonas convinced her? Didn’t seem like that mattered too much. In truth, it was probably just a combination of the things he said alongside her own boredom that made her leave.

It wasn’t too long before the men reappeared, the Mother and Greyemeid along with them. The Mother greeted Adaklies with a smile. Greyemeid offered a curt nod.

“From here, we head east,” said Jonas. “On foot, it’ll be a couple weeks to get into Ir proper, and from there we head north to the capital, Malivus. That’s where we’ll find Livoetian.”

“Are you certain she remains there?” asked the Mother.

“She should be there another month still. Assuming nothing comes up.”

The Mother nodded. And with that, they were off.

***

While not leisurely, the trip wasn’t too taxing, either. And, much to her own annoyance, Adaklies couldn’t stop herself from thinking.

Had she really changed so much? Not as much as Folsomar, surely. He was an entirely different person in many ways. Adaklies grumbled to herself, remembering what he said: ‘You’re still exactly the dragon I remember while being nothing like her at the same time.’ Meaningless. She’d adapted to her circumstances, that’s all.

The journey went without event until they reached the Vallivun, the great river that had marked the divide between Aezerin and Ir. While borders and battlegrounds shifted wildly, the Vallivun had always been a marker of significance. At the moment, Ir had pushed Aezerin back well past it, but it was anyone’s guess as to whether things would stay that way.

“So,” said Jonas, looking up and downstream, “the nearest crossing is a ways north, at—”

“Don’t be silly, young one,” said the Mother. “We’ll be flying across.”

“I, uh…” He trailed off, gauging the width of the river.

It was no small crossing. At least several hundred feet if not a thousand or more. For a dragon with strong enough wings and enough momentum, however, it wasn’t beyond reason to think they could cross it holding a person clad in armor.

Greyemeid seemed to be considering this as well, staring out over the river. “Take it off,” she said to Jonas.

“What?” said Jonas.

“Your pack. Take it off. I can get you across, but only you. I’ll come back for it.”

“A-alright.”

Jonas did not look comfortable with this, but kept up as much a front as he could. With a clatter, his heavy pack hit the ground. He presented himself to Greyemeid. “Alright, so what do I—ah!”

Greyemeid scooped him up, holding him like she wanted to carry him over the threshold. Her expression wasn’t too far off, either.

“Put your arms around my neck and hold tight.”

Jonas did so.

Greyemeid’s wings extended to their full breadth, hanging there a second in anticipation before flapping hard enough to blast Adaklies with a gust. Adaklies’s wings tensed with empathy.

She watched the two cross, urging them on all the way up until they touched ground on the other side. She shook her fist in celebration, though just a little. For Jonas, of course.

Adaklies glanced at Jonas’s pack. She could take it over herself, but Greyemeid had already said she’d carry it over. In front of Adaklies and Jonas, too. However, Greyemeid had been acting stuck up and, frankly, rude to her most of the time they’d known each other. Maybe seeing Adaklies could’ve helped her but didn’t would help readjust that attitude.  _ No, _ Adaklies thought, shaking her head. _ It would just make things worse. _

Squeezing her claws into fists, Adaklies growled. Was this what Folsomar was talking about? Adaklies letting what people thought about her affect her?

“Gaah!” Adaklies kicked the dirt. Now she was overthinking  _ overthinking _ it! Stomping over to the pack, she snatched it up, threw it on her back, and made the flight across the river.

Landing a few feet away from Jonas, she took off the pack and offered it to him. “Here.”

“Oh!” He brightened up. “Thank you.”

“I said I’d be able to get it just fine,” said Greyemeid.

“I’m so terribly sorry for helping,” said Adaklies, then walked off.

She caught the Mother carrying Folsomar across, though she was clearly having none of the trouble Greyemeid did. Her wings, while still beating to a strained pace, weren’t the violent flourish of activity Greyemeid’s were. Also, the two were kissing mid-air.

Adaklies gagged and turned away.

They set up camp not too far from the river, ending the day a little early. Adaklies took the opportunity to rest her legs, sitting with her back up against a tree, enjoying the shade and the breeze.

Everyone else was busy with something else, giving her privacy for the moment. Like many times before, she rested her claw in her lap. This was not the first time she’d tried summoning her drekhel on this trip, but each time had been a failure. She wasn’t even sure if she was getting any closer.

Closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing. She concentrated on the heat, the raw burning from that day with the Mother.A heat that could spawn flames from nothing. Her entire arm tensed. Her lungs burned. The forest faded away and her world became nothing but the air in her lungs and the heat of her fire. She became fire.

And she breathed.

Smoke caught in her throat, forcing her to hack and bend over. A vile taste of ashes soured her tongue once more as she coughed. As soon as she got her breath back, she bit her lip, glaring at her empty hand. What was she missing?

“Holding up?”

Adaklies turned. Jonas was standing over her, hands at his hips, his face even but hopeful.

“Yeah. I’m used to long trips, though they’re usually by wing,” said Adaklies.

He took a seat against the tree and pulled out a waterskin. “Thirsty?”

Adaklies raised her own. “I’m good.”

Jonas took a swig before putting his waterskin away. “We’re making pretty good pace. We should be in Malivus in another ten days or so. I will say, I was a bit worried we’d run into trouble from Ir spies or assassins.”

“Actually, I think we already did.”

“What?”

“How many people from Ir know about you? You’ve been dating Greyemeid for a little while now, right?”

“We’ve been pretty clandestine.”

“So you don’t know.”

He conceded the point with a shrug.

“I think that lamia’s group in Keian were there to kill you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“They attacked way too readily. You weren’t exactly helping things, brandishing your sword and answering their questions in the most combative way, but if they were bounty hunters looking for me, they would’ve brought a flier with them. It’d be downright stupid to go after a dragon without someone that could find and pursue them effectively. Plus, they had a lot of humans with them. Getting ambushed in a bar or back alley by a bunch of bloodthirsty humans would be harder for Greyemeid to track back to Livoetian than monsters doing the same.”

Jonas crossed his arms, tapping his armor. “It makes sense. I had been wondering if, or when, really, I would start seeing tails or assassins. Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“I wasn’t very sure of it. Things didn’t really come together until you mentioned how much thought you gave to getting to Livoetian as quickly as we could after joining up with Greyemeid. It made me think you suspected someone was on to you. The ‘bounty hunters’ in Keian fit that role well.”

“Then why would they—” He cut himself off, dipping into thought. “If they knew I was looking for you, which they probably did, then I bet they thought pursuing your bounty would be a great cover story for my ‘accidental’ death. We fell right into their trap.”

“ _ You _ did, I was just trying to have a drink. Good thing they underestimated you.”

He shook his head. “The people they hired were just poor fighters.”

“Stop being modest. You were fighting four on one. They would have had to be spectacularly bad to make that an even fight against an average fighter, and I could tell they knew what they were doing. I suppose you’re lucky you had me to back you up.”

He absentmindedly nodded.

“I want to know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“You fought in a bloody war seeing Hell knows what, then decided the best course of action was personally pursuing the most feared of Ir’s generals. And you not only took on Greyemeid, you ended up making her fall for you. Then some time later you decided it wasn’t enough and figure the next most logical course of action is to take on Livoetian, picking up Greyemeid and the Dragon Mother herself for your campaign. You’re pitting two Pillars together for the first time in probably centuries and I bet you intend on jumping right into the middle of that fight, too.”

“Yes?” he replied, confused.

“Aren’t you worried?”

“About what?”

Adaklies set her jaw.  _ About what? _ “You’re walking headfirst into a fight between powers far beyond us. Livoetian could end us with a harsh glare. And even if she didn’t kill you, you could lose everything. Aezerin. Greyemeid.”

“I know I could. Do not think it has not crossed my mind.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“When I think about it, yes, it does. I try not to.”

“Oh, well, what a wonderful solution, just don’t think about it! Why didn’t I think of that earlier?”

“Solution? What was I supposed to be solving?”

“Do you ever think this whole thing may have been a bad idea?”

“No.”

Adaklies narrowed her eyes at him. “Even knowing the consequences?”

“The alternative is leaving Greyemeid. I cannot accept that.”

“So you’re killing Livoetian.”

Again he shot her a confused look. “Yes. Was I not clear the first time?”

Shaking her head, Adaklies left. Jonas wasn’t going to be any help.

Night brought cold. Eventually even the light of dusk faded and the moon wasn’t bright enough to pierce the forest canopy. She wondered if she used to be more willing to talk with others, but as soon as the thought ended, she grew angry. Why was she comparing her present self with her past self? 

She would’ve been perfectly content keeping to herself for a while, but the Mother waved her over. Everyone was gathered around the fire, and as Adaklies sat down, the Mother spoke up.

“Tomorrow morning I shall depart for a time. I must fetch an enchanted weapon for my dear husband who  _ conveniently  _ departed without one.”

Adaklies glanced at Folsomar, noting the sword on his hip.

Folsomar’s grin was wider than his face. “Is there any chance—”

“Dear,” said the Mother, cutting him off.

The two stared at each other, the Mother entirely humorless and Folsomar almost bursting with energy. Several lone, dry moments passed before Folsomar collapsed back into his chair, grin dampened but still there. “You’re no fun,” he said.

“What in Hell are you talking about?” said Adaklies.

“Oh, I was just about to ask Istoladrek if I could use the sword I’ve got now. It’s my favorite.” He patted it. “Nothing but trusty steel. Seen me through quite a few battles and never let me down.”

“You have a hundred other  _ much _ more useful weapons you could use,” grumbled the Mother.

“Yes, but you knew I wasn’t interested in those without me even saying so, didn’t you?”

The Mother clicked her fingers against her scales before sitting back up straight. “I raise this particular discussion owing to its relevance.” She looked at Adaklies and Jonas in turn.

Adaklies spoke up. “I’m betting Livoetian’s just like you in that she won’t care much about steel.”

“Precisely. Beheading, impaling, immolation, whilst all useful and to some extent effective against Livoetian, will gain us naught. Qia’s power is intensely attached to Livoetian as a Pillar and will regenerate her body after some time if not separated from Livoetian in a particular manner.”

“How do we separate Livoetian from Qia’s power, then?” said Jonas.

“That knowledge remains with me and me alone. It is possible. What I will divulge is that the deed will take minutes. As such, it is nothing that can be achieved amidst a fight with an unwilling participant.”

“Can’t we just strike a fatal blow first, then do the separation while she’s helpless?” asked Jonas.

“Were it so simple. The well of power I must needs access to for the manner of separation disappears if the host is killed. It retreats to Qia’s bosom until the body can heal or is reconstructed.”

“So we need to capture her? Alive?” asked Adaklies.

“Not truly capture her. Incapacitate,” said the Mother.

“And what would be the best way to incapacitate her?” asked Jonas.

“Thus we come to the origin of this discussion: weapons. Enchanted or magical weapons would prevent her access to her magic. My drekhel, for instance, is the manifestation of my magic. If I were to thrust it into Livoetian and leave it there, the chaos of variant magical pulses flowing through her body would leave her helpless. Folsomar and you both would have access to the same effect with an enchantment.” She raised a finger. “But no matter the weapon: magical, enchanted, or plain steel, you must remember to leave it in her body after you strike.”

“So I could use steel if I wished?” said Jonas.

“What decree of faith do you accord your precision? Such a thing is possible if you can pierce the heart and only the heart. Only then would the entirety of her magic be compelled towards sustaining her life. Other wounds would not have the necessary effect with plain steel. Dare you the risk?”

Adaklies scratched the back of her neck. Just fighting and defeating Livoetian would be a marvel on its own. Fighting and incapacitating her while taking care not to kill her? Borderline madness.

“What do you know about her Castle, Mother?” said Adaklies.

“It is a boundary of magic that attacks anyone within, holding a will independent Livoetian,” said the Mother. “Though in this area, you may be better served asking another.”

Her face severe, Greyemeid leaned forward. “It’s as you say. The Castle is hard-limited to a precise distance. I haven’t measured it to the finger, but it’s somewhere around three hundred feet. Step inside and you get attacked. Stay outside and you might as well not exist to it.

“As for methods of attack, it’s straightforward. It spawns projectiles that vary from the shape and size of a stone to a ballista bolt and everything in-between. A direct hit is lethal to most anyone, excepting protection like dragon scales. Common steel is borderline useless for blocking, though if you’re lucky you might deflect a single blast before your weapon shatters.” She looked at Adaklies, then Folsomar. “The Castle terminates several broad strides from Livoetian herself, likely to prevent it from accidentally hitting her. That’s its only vulnerability.”

“I can see why she’s been so hard to kill,” said Folsomar. “Is there a certain amount of time she can hold it?”

“If there is a limit, it’s far longer than we can hope to outlast. I’ve seen her maintain it for days before.”

“There has to be some kind of trick to it,” said Jonas. “A barrier that large and that powerful being maintained for  _ days _ ? It breaks the limits of reality.”

“She was a venerable font of magic energy before she became a Pillar,” said the Mother. “Does your belief truly stretch so little as to think this is not possible in the wake of a Pillar’s power?”

Sighing, Jonas turned to Greyemeid. “Seems we’ve quite the fight ahead of us.”

“You intend on challenging her Castle? With bare steel, human speed, no wings for maneuverability nor scales for protection? This is not your fight,” said Greyemeid.

“I will not watch others risk themselves for a cause I started.”

“Consider the practicality, dear,” said Greyemeid. “We’ll already have four people on the offensive. Having someone back to make a distraction or help with anything else that might come up would be invaluable.”

“I would be useless outside the Castle. Do not try to dress it up to make me feel better. I will be in this fight.”

“If you know how—”

“Greyemeid,” he said, looking around at everyone else. “I am… let us talk about it later. Somewhere else. I am tired right now.”

Greyemeid frowned, but conceded. “Very well. It is getting late.”

As the two walked back to their tent, Adaklies looked down to her empty claw. Jonas and her were in the same boat. Shoulder to shoulder with legends, how was a simple dragon like her without a drekhel supposed to help?

**

The Mother was gone before Adaklies awoke the next morning. She was surprised to find she was the last one to wake with the sun already cresting the horizon and the smell of breakfast thick in the air. Being the first to rise was a small thing, but upon finding the privilege gone, she was a little more annoyed to lose it than she thought she’d be.

The tone was different now with the Mother gone. While Jonas may have been the one to bring the group together, the Mother had been the one with all the knowledge and power. She was the force that made this group and their hopes  _ real _ . So when Greyemeid teased Jonas by tickling him with the claw she placed on his hip, when Jonas tried to ignore it and talk seriously about logistics, when Folsomar cracked jokes and made observations, and when Adaklies smiled along, she knew why the cadence of their voices seemed to clash. Why their rhythms rang stilted and hollow.

They were all too eager to set out again. They left the chatter of the river and drove headfirst into the thickness of the forest.

“Does it ever get exhausting being married to the Mother?” Jonas asked Folsomar.

Folsomar grinned. “Careful not to ask that too loud, she might hear you.”

“I thought she already left.”

“Can never be too cautious with her.”

“I’m actually a bit curious about your relationship myself,” said Greyemeid. “You two seem to fit so well together. How do you do it?”

“And what sort of adventures do you go on? You’re quite the duo, I bet you could do anything,” said Adaklies.

Chuckling, Folsomar put up his hand. “Woah, that’s a lot to hit a guy with at once.”

“Your wife has hit you harder,” said Adaklies.

“You’ve got me there. But as for how we do it, I suppose it’s because we’re always honest with our intentions.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Greyemeid.

“We both had to learn how to be actively open with each other, though for entirely different reasons. For her, it was because it’d been so long since her last relationship that she had trouble getting back into the habit. Not to mention there was a gulf of new life experiences since then, so naturally her opinions about how to do things had changed. For me, while it’d been a time since I’d had a lover, it was more adjusting myself to find where I could compromise with her lifestyle, where I had to admit defeat, and where I could not relent.

“But once we understood how the other viewed certain things, what our logic was, and, as I said, how we angled our intent, finding common ground and respect was much easier.”

“Why do you say intent was the most important?” asked Greyemeid.

“Intent’s at the core of action. The tricky part of action, the part that causes hurt, is misunderstanding where the desire to take that action came from. At least, that’s what we figured out.” Folsomar shrugged. “It’s worked for us.”

“And what was the first time you decided you could not relent to her?”

Folsomar scratched the back of his neck. “I still get nervous thinking about it. I mean, you all know the difference in our strengths.”

“And heights,” added Adaklies.

“And heights. Back then I was thinking I was crazy, challenging her. But I knew I’d be even crazier to give her up, so I followed through.

“A congregation of sorts had camped out under the Dragon’s Horns. It wasn’t exactly a small gathering either, several hundred people. It was a religious gathering. Or, perhaps, a gathering under the guise of religion. They were proclaiming they were worshippers of Benethia and had her symbols scattered about, but their revelry was much less… appropriate than I believe Benethia would approve of. Of particular note to Izzy was how they climbed on the Horns themselves like children up trees.”

“Wait,” interjected Adaklies. “Did you just call the Mother ‘Izzy’?”

Folsomar stared blankly at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyways—”

“No, you definitely just called her Izzy.”

Folsomar coughed. “ _ Anyways _ , she wanted to storm the gathering, raze their tents and their symbols to the ground, and immolate anyone she caught climbing on her Horns.”

There was a short pause before Adaklies hopped in, saying, “It sounds like she was a lot colder before she met you.”

“She was. I asked her to, well,  _ not _ do that. Don’t get me wrong, I was pretty angry with them, too, but I figured I could talk them out of it. I asked her to let me try and she did. I wasn’t successful.”

“So she followed through with her plan, then?” said Greyemeid.

“She wanted to. I asked her not to.”

“Brave,” said Greyemeid.

“That’s what I was hoping it was: bravery, not madness. And that’s when we had our first fight. And all of you are, of course, very familiar with how dragons settle fights.”

Everyone, even Jonas, nodded.

“Given that you ended up married, I assume you won that fight,” said Greyemeid.

“Yup, sure did.”

Adaklies thought back to Keian. Folsomar had told her about that fight while they were on their way to meet the Mother. “You said it took you two years to come up with a way to win,” said Adaklies. “Did she really wait two years for you to resolve that? I mean, the congregation would surely leave by then. How would she know who to hunt down?”

“Do not underestimate a slighted dragon that has nothing but time,” said Folsomar.

“Two years?” asked Jonas. “What exactly did you do?”

“That is something for Adaklies and I to know. But I’ve given you one of my stories, I think it’s only fair you give me one in exchange.”

“A war story, then? I have seen a fair number of battles,” said Jonas.

Greyemeid wrapped a wing around Jonas, pulling him close. “I believe he wants one of  _ our _ stories.”

“Is that truly a good idea?”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

The smile she gave Jonas made him shrink.

“How about Brenville?” she said.

“How about  _ not _ Brenville?” said Jonas.

Greyemeid sighed, shaking her head. “Archmed, then.”

“I don’t think—”

“Believe it or not,” said Greyemeid, talking over Jonas, “Jonas loves mountain climbing.”

“It is good for keeping fit and lets you learn your limits. Very strenuous.”

“That’s not the only strenuous thing you enjoy doing.” said Greyemeid. “But as I was saying, Jonas loves climbing. So, on one of our earlier dates, he proposed we climb one of the mountains to the north. I agreed. We arranged a meeting as we had a few times before and made our way out.

“Jonas picked a less intimidating mountain, knowing I was a beginner, though it had a beautiful view nonetheless. He was a fantastic guide, telling me how to find the right places to grip, how to use my limbs, how to tell when I was getting too tired, putting together a resting schedule, everything. And our climb went quite well, wouldn’t you say?”

Jonas crossed his arms. “I suppose I would,” he mumbled.

“We camped in a cave on the side of the mountain near the top, then made it to the summit early the next day, giving us most of that day to make our way down. And about halfway down, do you know what Jonas asked me?”

Folsomar was smiling now, too. “What?”

“‘You are picking this up really well for your first time, Greyemeid.’”

Adaklies and Folsomar broke into laughter, although Folsomar was much better at keeping it to a more polite tone than Adaklies.

“What did you expect?” said Adaklies.

“It was my first time dating a dragon. The first time Greyemeid let me pick the activity, too. I was nervous and did not think things through. That aside, climbing still requires a lot of stamina and it is difficult to make much use of wings while on the slope itself.”

Adaklies laughed again.

“Come now, enough. I merely wanted to tease him, not insult him.” said Greyemeid. “We still had a good time, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” said Jonas, brightening. “We did. A lot, actually.”

“What do you think you took away from it?” said Folsomar.

“That things like how well you can find a grip or whether or not you have limbs that trivialize the exercise matter less than the company,” said Jonas.

“Indeed, though you do seem to forget that at times,” said Greyemeid, and kissed him on the forehead. “Come.”

The two picked up speed, leaving Adaklies and Folsomar alone. Adaklies dropped into a leisurely pace and concentrated on the path. Or at least tried to.

“You ever feel out of place?” she asked Folsomar.

“Yeah. Even now, I’m having some of those feelings. I see them in you, too.”

“I hardly think we’re having the same thoughts. You’ve taken on the Mother twice and won both times, so you’ve got experience against someone like Livoetian. You’re valuable. Not to mention you’re  _ married _ to the Mother.”

“Is it really so hard to believe I think I don’t deserve being married to Istoladrek sometimes?”

Adaklies put her hands on her hips. “No, I guess it’s not. But you have to admit my position is a lot different.”

“Different in ways, yes, but the thoughts come from the same place. It doesn’t matter why you or I feel out of place, just that we do. You feel like you don’t have a role? Hop on board. You can be ‘the overlooked one’ and I’ll be ‘husband of the dragon we  _ really _ wanted’. We make our places in this, Adaklies. Or we learn to be happy with the ones others give us.”

“So it’s not your first time with something like this.”

“Nope.”

“How do you deal with it, then?”

Folsomar crossed his arms and looked up in thought. “The exceptionals—the prodigies and the powerful—their life is not lived like ours. They see a goal, walk straight to it, then grasp it. The possibility that it was more than a stroll away or that it was beyond their reach never enters their mind. For us, however, it’s an odyssey. A pilgrimage. And even if we reach above and beyond, we still may fail. The first thing I learned to do was accept it.”

“I think I’ve accepted that well enough.”

“Adaklies, if you stop there, you’ve trapped yourself in a valley of self-pity. There are times we can succeed and, if you’ve made it this far in life, I suspect you’ve already have. In fact, I know you have because I was there to witness it. I’ve known my moments of success too. And at some point along my journey it occured to me that the exceptionals, once they’ve seized that goal and they look back, all they see is footsteps. You know what I see?”

“No.”

“A mountain.”

_ A mountain, huh? _ Adaklies wasn’t sure if she had any of those behind her.

“Let me ask: have you figured out the answer to the question I gave you when we set out?” said Folsomar.

“I’m not even sure I figured out the question.”

“Jonas convinced you somehow. At the core of the want that brought you here is a reason and not knowing that reason is what’s making all this frustration. Be here because you made a conscious choice. People are too specific to do something for a vague thing like want.”

Adaklies wrinkled her face in a frown, gaze wandering away from Folsomar. The Mother would’ve been ashamed to call her a dragon as she was right now.

“Adaklies.”

Folsomar’s tone sent a chill up her spine. She followed Folsomar’s gaze and saw they’d caught up to Jonas and Greyemeid.

And they were not alone.

Standing a short distance before them was a lilim, tail and wings a white so stark the green of the forest recoiled from it. While shorter than Adaklies, the lilim’s stature lost no such authority. She wore a casual dress wrinkled below the waist, light enough to catch the breeze. Black stained the tip of her tail, a unique marking held by only one lilim they were familiar with. Though she held no weapon, Adaklies knew she was armed.

Greyemeid stood at attention. Jonas, while tense, still had his wits about him, one hand on his sword and ready to draw.

“This is what you betrayed me for?” said Livoetian, eyes grazing over the group.

“You should know that the thing I betrayed you for isn’t something you can see just by looking at us,” said Greyemeid. She spoke with no hate, no anger, even. Just respect.

“You aren’t the first soldier I’ve lost to love, I suppose. I thought you’d have more sense than this, however.” Livoetian’s eyes darkened when they lingered on Jonas.

Greyemeid took a step forward. “This is hardly my doing alone.”

Livoetian’s face flashed anger. “You could have spoken to me about this instead of eloping like an adolescent.”

“Is that what the assassins were for? Negotiation?” said Greyemeid.

Livoetian flinched. “They were to stop an annoyance before it became an issue. Too late, unfortunately. A common Aezerin soldier. I would be insulted if there was room for it next to my fury. If you wanted one as a concubine, you know you were always free to take one.”

“I—” started Greyemeid.

“Yes, yes, you never wanted a concubine. Come, Grey, I’m not blind. I’m merely venting at you, trying to think on what I might have done differently to avoid this situation so it does not come up again.”

“There is one obvious answer,” said Jonas.

“I imagine things are quite clear to you, living in the weeds underfoot,” Livoetian spat at him. “You are fortunate you won’t live long enough to see beyond them.”

“You’re quick to hand out death threats standing out there by yourself,” said Adaklies.

When Livoetian turned to her, it was like she was noticing Adaklies for the first time. Her stare was stone. It hit Adaklies like a punch. _Why did I speak up?_ _This is Livoetian, the Demon Lord, the Queen of Ir, the Pillar, not some bar thug I can scare off._

“And you’ve devolved to recruiting random citizens, Grey?” She frowned at Adaklies. “Istoladrek’s husband I recognize, but I must admit I don’t know you. Don’t speak again, you might singe me with your… conflagrative normality.”

Any other person, any other day, Adaklies would’ve hit her back twice as hard with a quip.

“Why is everything always so heated with you dragons, anyways?” Livoetian asked Greyemeid. “Given more raw power than almost all other monsters, you have all the opportunities in the world, yet all you seem to want to do is spew it about aimlessly.”

Before Greyemeid could get out an answer, Livoetian flicked her wrist at her.

A pink blast of magic erupted from the ground at Greyemeid’s feet, catching her in the chest and flinging her backward like a pebble in a slingshot. Had Greyemeid not covered herself with her scaled arms a second before the impact, the blast likely would’ve left her stomach with a gaping hole instead.

Jonas and Folsomar had their swords out instantly. Adaklies took a stance, waiting for another attack, but Livoetian didn’t press.

Livoetian peered at Folsomar. “Leave. I will deal with my traitorous general and her cohorts. Once done, there will be no reason for you or Istoladrek to get involved. She’s intelligent enough to know that pursuing a fight between Pillars would be rash.”

Folsomar turned to Adaklies. “What did I tell you? I’m just her husband.” To Livoetian, he said, “No, thanks.”

“You have no chance of winning this fight. Leave. I will not ask again.”

“I’m kinda with Adaklies here. You’re very quick to hand out threats.”

“Fine. I’ll leave Istoladrek four bodies instead of three.”

Before the last word even left her mouth, Folsomar was in motion. Adaklies was a step behind him.

The air grew thick.

Pink energy, the same that had thrown Greyemeid back a moment ago, coalesced before Adaklies, formed into a glowing arrow and launched at her all in the space of a second. Sucking in a breath, she twisted to the side and it zipped by. It missed by inches. Just as she came out of that dodge, however, another arrow was forming above her. She leaned back. It killed her forward momentum, but the arrow went wide as well. She planted a foot to regain her balance. The dull hum of magic alerted her to another arrow forming behind her and she scrambled to the side.

A rush of air brushed by Adaklies and she dared to look at where it came from. Livoetian had leapt to Jonas and, before he could bring his sword to bear, landed a punch on his temple so hard even Adaklies flinched. He went down hard.

Adaklies growled in frustration as arrows of magic formed and shot, forcing dodge after dodge. Some flew close enough for their pulsating power to tickle her skin. Livoetian herself was now unleashing a fuschia barrage of death upon Folsomar, making the air so thick with her magic it almost blinded Adaklies. Somehow he was avoiding it all.

Greyemeid broke the stalemate.

She came in so fast Adaklies hardly realized it was her. The Castle’s energy buzzed around her, but subtle adjustments of her wings and careful swings of her tail moved her right past it and into Livoetian. Yelling, her weapon came down.

And the sight of it paralyzed Adaklies.

Just as the arc of Greyemeid’s attack began, the air turned to fire. Her scales hissed. Her skin cried out. Piercing, familiar heat swallowed Adaklies and spit her back out stunned. An impossible two-headed battle-axe formed in Greyemeid’s claws, a form of wicked, curling dragonfire made steel.

Greyemeid had a drekhel.

Her strike came in high and fast, connecting with Livoetian’s shoulder. It should have cleaved the entire arm off. Instead, Greyemeid’s drekhel bounced off with a clang, throwing her weapon back and her arms along with it. While she was reeling, Livoetian spun and thrust out her open palm, nailing Greyemeid with a fierce blast of air so dense Adaklies could see it. Whatever grunt of pain Greyemeid had let out, it was lost in the following concussion.

Folsomar and her were essentially paralyzed in the Castle, spending all of their energy just dodging. Greyemeid, who had some semblance of surprise, had actually landed a hit  _ with a drekhel _ , and it had bounced off Livoetian as if made of rubber. Even if any, or hell, all of them made it through, what were they going to do?

What were they missing?

One of the magic arrows aimed at Adaklies blasted the earth in front of her, throwing up a cloud of dirt. Some of it got in her eyes and she stumbled.

This was not a place she could afford to stumble.

The next arrow connected with her arm, melting the scales straight off and searing immeasurable pain into her body. Screaming, she clutched her arm and threw herself upward.

This was where a common dragon with no spectacular bloodline, nor wealth of power from Qia, nor mythical weapon had to stop and watch. This was her place.

She heard Folsomar curse and his sword cut through the air. He sprinted, dodging the arrows as they came at him, forging towards Livoetian. He earned each step with a blur of calculated steps and spins.

But for one single attack, he was too slow. The blast disintegrated his hands. His sword flew away from the force of it. Livoetian turned to him. As he searched for his sword on the ground, Livoetian gathered her magic and unleashed it.

It took him in the stomach and went straight through.

The shock froze him in place, letting two more arrows hit him before the barrage ended, taking out an arm and a leg. He crumpled in a smoking, foul-smelling heap.

Adaklies shrieked and dove for him.

The Castle immediately obstructed her, but she didn’t care. She buzzed by arrows right and left, ignoring the pain in her arm, desperation in her eyes. When an arrow the size of a log spawned directly in front of her, she finally had to kill her flight, hitting the ground and rolling. The Castle assault pinned her once more.

She roared with each dodge, aggravated beyond words at her own weakness. She couldn’t even get to his side!

Another roar eclipsed her own.

The Mother fell like a comet, shrugging off arrows from Livoetian’s Castle left and right, and descended upon Livoetian with claws, tail, and drekhel in a storm of motion.

Nothing got through.

However, Livoetian couldn’t get even a second to summon more magic to drive off the Mother, and with her Castle already pierced, she couldn’t rely on it without making some space.

The drekhel came down. Livoetian sidestepped. The Mother’s tail swung for her head. It glanced off. The Mother’s claws snatched Livoetian’s wings as she went to lift off and threw her into the ground, but the follow-up thrust still left Livoetian unharmed.

With the terrifying density of raw power being thrown about, Adaklies was shocked their struggle went on as long as it did. Eventually Livoetian squirmed just far enough away to ready a spell. As the Mother went in for another attack, Livoetian disappeared and with her, the Castle.

Adaklies sprinted over to Folsomar.

One arm was a smouldering stump. His gut was a bleeding hole. Burns covered almost all of his skin and Adaklies could only make out his face. He barely had the strength to breathe.

His eyes found Adaklies, however, and locked onto her. With his one good arm, he grabbed hers and said a single word.

“Fly.”

And moved no more.

“Folsomar! No, no, no!” the Mother knelt at his side, running her claws over his body, hoping to find some response, some sign of life. But he had spent the last of it with that word. There was nothing for the Mother to find.

Istoladrek squeezed his chest where his heart would be, one last doomed hope shimmered on her face. But even that died.

The twin bells of her lungs rang, and Adaklies knew the sound of fury.


	3. Chapter 3

[ ](http://touchfluffytail.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/map-2.png)

_ “You’ve got to counter the spin with your wings, Ada. Spread them out.” _

_ “I am!” _

_ “Broader!” _

_ Pouting, Adaklies leapt into the air once more, raised the sword above her head, and brought it down. The momentum of the swing threatened to spin her end-over-end, but she flapped her wings hard and managed to wobble instead. _

_ “Better,” said her mother. “But you’ll need plenty more practice to learn how much to compensate for the swing of the sword.” _

_ “Can’t we move onto the next move already?” asked Adaklies. _

_ Her mother smirked. “You’re trying to run without learning how to stand. You’re still just a teenager, you’ve got time. Now get that sword up!” _

_ Adaklies took to the air and swung the sword, throwing a flurry of strikes at the air. She wobbled and her hands ached from how hard she gripped the sword, but she remained airborne.  _

_ “You try too hard.” _

_ “What’s that supposed to mean?” _

_ “You can’t just push through something difficult with nothing but more effort. Either you get it or you don’t. All this swinging about you’re doing with that sword is getting you nowhere. It’s fine to give it a rest.” _

_ “You’re saying I should just give up.” _

_ Adaklies’s mother shook her head, sat down, then waved Adaklies over. “Put the sword down.” _

_ “I haven’t—” _

_ “Put it down, Ada.” _

_ Huffing, Adaklies sheathed the sword and dropped it before walking over to her mother and sitting down. _

_ Her mother ruffled her hair. Her touch was warm and rough. “You’ve got my spirit and that’ll take you far. But you’re going to have to learn to pick your battles. Know where to keep going and where to give up.” _

_ “I’ve gotten a lot better with a sword.” _

_ “You’re still sloppy. And it’s not just swordfighting I’m talking about. Life’s gonna throw a lot at you, and I’m not going to be around to help.” _

_ “You’re leaving again?” Annoyance seeped into her voice. _

_ Adaklies’s mother flicked her in the forehead. “Get your mind off the present! I’m not leaving, not yet. I just got back. I’m trying to warn you about the future. You need to prepare yourself.” _

_ “I’ll train harder.” _

_ “Training is one kind of prep, but strength can’t solve every problem. You need to go out into the world, expose yourself to all sorts of different situations, different dangers. Then you’ll be able to tell when you’re in over your head. When to run.” _

_ “What sort of places should I go, then?” _

_ “I dunno, maybe Ir or Aezerin? They’re always gonna be at ends. But don’t join the army. Just try new things and learn from them like I did.” _

_ “Like helping conquer a country.” _

_ Adaklies’s mother threw her head back and laughed. “No way. You’re my kid, so you’re not hopeless, but repeating what I’ve done? I’m one in a million. Not gonna happen.” _

_ “I’ll make it happen.” _

_ “You should really toss that dangerous attitude.” When Adaklies frowned at her, Adaklies’s mother leaned down and patted her shoulder. “Look, I’m not saying you’ll amount to nothing. I said you’re my kid, and my kid ain’t a weakling. But only I can be me and the only person you can be is you. You’ll find your way.” _

_ “But not as someone famous like you.” _

_ “Don’t get hung up on what you haven’t done or what I have. We are not our accomplishments. We are the road that runs through them.” _

_ *** _

The next morning was wordless.

The Mother returned from burying her husband at some point during the night. Jonas and Greyemeid arose not long after Adaklies, their weariness showing even after a night’s sleep.

Adaklies knew they should’ve gotten up and started traveling as soon as they’d eaten, but no one did. Their backs could not yet carry the burden of their thoughts.

The Mother remained with gaze outward, perhaps lost in her own thoughts, perhaps anticipating another attack from Livoetian. Greyemeid’s eyes were solidly planted in the dirt. Jonas was nestled up next to her, looking all about, so lost in himself he probably didn’t know where he was. Adaklies clutched her wounded arm, hoping a firm grip on it would distract her from the pain.

The sun crested noon before something finally happened. Jonas stood and approached the Mother.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She didn’t even glance at him. “Apologize not for the actions of others.”

“It is my fault, though. I am the one who gathered us. And it was my incompetence that let Livoetian find us.”

“Livoetian and her spies found us through an effort of their own. And think not it your fault my husband or I are here.”

“I should have—”

“ _ You _ should have?” said the Mother, taking a step toward Jonas and dwarfing him. “You? Do not scoff my husband and I by purloining ownership. You may have asked us for help, but we were proffered a choice and we  _ chose _ . The only thing  _ you _ should’ve done, little one, is remained seated by Greyemeid and kept your presumptuous apology to yourself.” Her tail nudged him away.

He walked, limbs stiff, back to his seat next to Greyemeid. A touch of color returned to Jonas’s pale face as he looked at Adaklies. “I’m sorry to you as well.” 

“Cut it out.” snapped Adaklies.

“He’s—” Greyemeid started, but Jonas laid a hand on her thigh, quieting her.

“Adaklies, you know I am the one who put this together. Anything that happens on this trip is at least partially my fault.”

“Don’t you ever get sick of being so  _ severe _ all the time?”

Jonas’s face hardened. “I am who I am. And Folsomar was a good man who did not deserve what he got.”

“He did not deserve it?” said the Mother.

Everyone’s attention snapped to the Mother.

“My husband was aiming to kill Livoetian. As were we all. She defended herself. I may see it as an injustice, but to say he did not deserve it? He put himself in a position where he knew very well it may happen.” She looked over her shoulder back at them. “Forget not why we are here and try not to dress this up as something it is not. We are assassins.”

Even Greyemeid was taken aback. “Isn’t that being too harsh on yourself? On him?”

“It’s too early to say something like that,” said Jonas, nodding in agreement. “Where’s the room for sorrow?”

The Mother closed her eyes, taking a breath so contained Adaklies could tell it was the only thing between her and a roaring avalanche. “Is it that you think no room exists in my heart for sadness? That I’ve become cold and hollow these nearly two thousand years? It’s the opposite. My cup has filled and spilled over. ‘Where’s the room for sorrow?’ You would be better served asking if oceans have room for water or skies room for air. For this moment, my anger reigns. I’ll only find sorrow in washing Livoetian’s blood from my claws.”

With that, she turned away once more.

“I’m sorry if I—” said Greyemeid.

“ _ Enough _ .”

Jonas put a hand on Greyemeid’s back and rubbed it. She smiled at Jonas, leaned into him and wrapped a wing around him.

Adaklies stormed off into the forest, marching until she couldn’t see straight.  _ Livoetian was just defending herself!? _ Adaklies punched the nearest tree as hard as she could. The shock rattled throughout her entire body, igniting the wound on her arm. The tree shook, branches falling around her like stiff rain.

Folsomar didn’t deserve death. So what if Livoetian was defending herself? It wasn’t  _ right _ . He was the first one to trust Adaklies without needing a word of convincing since her bounty was posted.

The Mother said she was saddened, but where were her tears? Where was the rage at this  _ wrongness _ in the world?

The next time when Adaklies hit the tree, her fingers went numb.

Where was Folsomar’s vengeance? The cry to raise a sword in his name? The shout of his name at the sky so the world wouldn’t forget him?

With a scream, Adaklies threw her entire body into the final punch. This time the crack was deafening. The tree leaned slow at first, gaining speed as it collapsed in a thunderstorm.

Adaklies fell to her knees, covered her face, and cried. Folsomar was dead. Who could tell her she wouldn’t soon follow?

He was the one who bound the group together. He was the one who, when everything got as mad as it was, knew how to stay normal. How to  _ think _ normal.

Adaklies poured out all she had into her claws, weeping until the dirt mistook her misery for rain. She didn’t even know the answer to his question yet. Now she was supposed to figure this all out by herself?

Cry as she might, even Adaklies had her limits. She couldn’t fill oceans with sorrow like the Mother. Nor could she spit arrogant apologies with a straight face like Jonas. All that was left, she supposed, was being herself.

It would have to do for now.

With straining effort, she stood. Her hand went to her wound. She looked at it. Several scales had melted straight off, never to heal, and the skin around them was pulsing red. She could leave. She didn’t have to risk herself any more. It was understandable, wasn’t it?

‘ _ You’re going to have to learn to pick your battles. Know where to keep going and where to give up.’ _

Someone behind her clicked her tongue. Adaklies spun.

Greyemeid was there, alone, leaning against a tree, arms crossed. They met eyes and Adaklies immediately shot her a withering glare.

“What are you here for?”

Letting her arms down, Greyemeid approached.

Adaklies’s mind flashed back to the battle with Livoetian. She saw Greyemeid, arms high, a gleaming drekhel sweeping downward in a deadly arc. The general had a drekhel.

_ How did she figure it out? _

_ Or is this just another limitation of being ordinary? _

“Discard your raucous anger, Adaklies. I’m here because I’ve been unfair to you and I’d like to offer my apology.”

“Great fucking time for an apology.”

“An apology it is nonetheless. I have been told I have a bad habit of introspection in difficult times.”

Adaklies loosened her gritting teeth. “Fine. Accepted. Are you happy?”

“That’s not the only reason I’ve come.”

“Then out with it.”

“I thought you may have wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“The situation before us.”

“And why in demon-bloodied hells would I want to talk about that?”

“Because Folsomar was a close friend and,” she said, gesturing to the downed tree, “I thought you might want to let out some anger.”

“Unfortunately for the tree, you’re a little late for that.”

“That’s apparent.”

Adaklies passed Greyemeid, intent on getting back to camp.

“Do not assume yourself alone in your opposition to the Mother’s assessment,” said Greyemeid.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The Mother lives and judges herself on a set of values the lessers like us are unfamiliar with. But should you ask my feelings at the moment? Doubt. Fear, even. I want to protect Jonas. I want to know my decision to leave Livoetian didn’t doom him. And,” said Greyemeid, eyes burning, “Rage. Rage that Livoetian would dare make me feel these things. I cannot feel your sorrow for the death of a good man, but I can feel your anger. I want you to know we’re on the same side.”

Greyemeid put a claw on Adaklies’s shoulder and nodded.

Adaklies returned the nod. Even she couldn’t throw such honest words back at Greyemeid. Besides, this was not the time to be spitting in her allies’ faces. There was someone else much more deserving.

***

It was mid-afternoon before someone dared to broach the subject of their plan.

“We are back at our original problem,” said Jonas. “How to deal with Livoetian. The only ones able to even get close to her were Greyemeid and the Mother, and nothing they tried seemed to even touch Livoetian. Any ideas?”

“We need to get you a suitable weapon,” said Greyemeid.

“No,” said the Mother. She reached into her pack and took out a sword. She tossed it at Jonas’s feet. “You have one. It’s enchanted. I picked it up along with the one meant for my husband.”

Jonas stared at it. “I… thank you. I’m truly grateful. This clears up that problem. Now we will keep heading west for another couple days, then head north.”

“We will no longer be taking that path,” said the Mother.

“Why not?” said Jonas.

“It wastes time. If we are to go to the capital, we will be going directly. But before we travel headlong into another battle with Livoetian, we will need to do more research.”

“With all due respect, Dragon Mother—"

The Mother bore down on Jonas. “I believe you’re mistaken about something. The moment Livoetian killed my husband, this assassination was no longer yours to lead. You will follow my direction, or you will lose it.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Now, do any of you have any ideas?” asked the Mother.

“We could try to find more help. I know numbers won’t work, but one or two more skilled fighters could even things out,” said Jonas.

“No.”

“No.”

Jonas balked at the simultaneous combined denials of Greyemeid and the Mother.

“Is there any chance we could discuss that point?”

“No,” said the Mother.

A lull broke the conversation. The group churned the gears in their heads, eyes wandering to the sky, to the ground, and to each other, trying to come up with something.

“Is there really nothing? No suggestions? No new information?” asked Jonas.

“Actually, I might have something,” said Adaklies.

Three heads turned to stare at her.

“It was… six years ago, now? I considered pursuing the bounty on Livoetian for a while. Started looking up information on her. Where she traveled, where she lingered, habits, guards, those sort of things.”

“Why didn’t you mention this?” said Greyemeid.

“It’s been six years. Pretty much all of that information is obsolete now. But, before I decided it was too risky to go after her, I dug up one piece of information—well, one person—that might still be relevant. Never ended up following through back then.”

“Who?” said Greyemeid.

“Her ex-husband.”

“Where.” said the Mother.

“A ways east, past where we were planning on turning north for Malivus. Almost a days’ flight.”

“Then we shall go there.” The Mother looked at Jonas. “I will bear you hence. Collect your things.”

Greyemeid opened and closed her mouth. She’d probably realized as Adaklies had that any objections thrown at the Mother would be dismissed without a second thought.

Once ready, Jonas rubbed his hands together. “Alright. So, how do you want me to—”

The Mother walked up to him, put a claw behind his back, then used her tail to sweep his legs out from underneath him. He yelped as he went horizontal, but the Mother’s other claw scooped up his legs before they came down.

“Adaklies, take the lead,” said the Mother.

The three dragons took off and headed east.

It was rough weather for flight. A strong wind bore down on them from the north, trying to throw them off-balance. Adaklies couldn’t keep herself from checking back on the Mother, sure the wind had either rustled Jonas out of place or slowed her down, but each time Adaklies looked, the Mother was there, flying steady, eyes iron-focused and wings beating with fervor.

They rested once about halfway through the flight, mostly for Jonas’s sake. Even hours in the Mother hadn’t shown a lick of fatigue, something Adaklies found mind-boggling. Carrying a human this distance was just one more thing a Pillar could do that an ordinary dragon like Adaklies could only dream of.

The afternoon was waning as the group landed at their destination. It was a solitary house, far removed from any village or settlement. It was too small to be called lavish, but large enough to be comfortable. A warm, flickering light glowed through the windows. To the side was a small garden, stocked with a medley of fruits and vegetables. Adaklies could make out the scent of livestock not far off as well.

Shaking off the ache of hours of flight, Adaklies stretched her wings and cricked her neck. She started toward the door.

It opened before she was halfway there. Standing in the doorway was a man that hardly came up to Adaklies’s shoulders. He waved at Adaklies wearing a smile innocent enough to shame a lamb, a picture made almost laughable by the pudginess in his cheeks and the long brown hair framing his face.

The man couldn’t offend a rabbit if he tried.

“Isn’t it a little early? Y’all were here just a couple months ago,” he said.

Adaklies gave him a confused look. “We’ve never been here before.”

“I know, she sends someone new one every time. Usually alone, though.” He took another look at them, reconsidering. “She didn’t send you, did she?”

“Are you Alexmathies?”

“Call me Lex. Come, let’s not chatter out here, I’ve got a perfectly comfy table we can all sit at.”

Face bubby, Lex held the door open for all of them, nodding in greeting as they entered. He directed them all to a tidy living area with a table that looked like it’d be pressed to seat everyone.

“Just a second and I’ll get chairs for everyone!” Lex hollered as he shuffled through into another room.

“Don’t bother,” said the Mother. “This will be a short talk.”

“All the more reason to be comfortable!” said Lex. After a brief bout, he emerged with chairs enough for everyone and directed they all sit. Adaklies, Jonas, and Greyemeid obliged, but the Mother preferred to lean against the wall. Brooding, really.

“Can I get any of you something to drink? Looks like it’s been a long trip. I should have some food around here, too, if you need a bite,” said Lex.

“No need,” the Mother answered for everyone.

“Sure? It’s really no problem.”

“I am.”

Lex hardly seemed affected. “Alright, no problem! I’d introduce myself, but it seems you’re familiar with me. Y’all care to introduce yourselves?”

“I am Istoladrek,” said the Mother. “The green dragon is Adaklies. Greyemeid is the red. Beside her is Jonas.”

Lex sat down, slowly, laying his hands on the table. “Q-quite a party you got there! If I knew I’d be hosting such company I’d have gotten something special ready.” From the Mother’s searing gaze he knew better than to pursue that avenue, however. “So, what can I do for y’all?”

“I am here for information on Livoetian,” said the Mother.

“Ah! That does often seem to be the subject of discussion, doesn’t it?” It was subtle, but something in his voice changed. “I left her about ten years ago, and people can change a lot in ten years, so I may not be able to help you out. But I’ll answer what I can.”

_ He left her? _

“You will tell me about her defenses. Specifically her Castle and whatever else she does to prevent weapons from reaching her,” said the Mother.

“That’s not the sort of information someone who’s looking to have a friendly chat with her would ask about, is it?”

“No, it is not.”

Lex did his best to keep up his smile. “Not sure I could really tell you much, then.”

“You can.”

“All I know is what I know. What little she did say was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten just about all of it. Didn’t really make an effort to remember it.”

“Is that so.”

“Yeah.” Lex’s eyes went to the door. “Y’all mind if I gotta step outside for a sec?”

The Mother nodded and Adaklies watched as he shuffled out the door, wondering if she should be feeling pity for the man or not.

“He’s lying,” said Greyemeid as soon as he was gone.

“I know,” said the Mother.

“Shouldn’t someone watch him, then?” said Jonas. “He might run.”

“And how would he run from three dragons, dear?”

“He…” Jonas trailed off. “I see what you mean.”

The four sat in silence. Jonas stared at the table while Greyemeid clasped her hands, deep in thought. The Mother looked out a nearby window, roiling anger still present but held in check. Adaklies’s foot started tapping on the floor.

“He didn’t seem all that interested in helping,” said Adaklies.

“We can wait for now,” said Greyemeid. “We have the time.”

“But what do we have to convince him?”

“We may not need anything. We’ve ambushed him with a sudden question with many unsightly implications. All he might need is time.”

“But we did not get the chance to explain our side,” said Jonas. “There is little to motivate him to talk.”

“A fool he is not,” said the Mother. “I could tell from where he looked, his posture, how he spoke. Easy to miss under that cloak of kindness. He will have gleaned enough from what he has seen thusfar.”

Jonas leaned forward onto the table. “It’s odd to think the defeat of Livoetian hinges on her former husband,” said Jonas. “And even stranger is that Livoetian’s going to be killed by a group made mostly of her own citizens.”

_ How did he do that?  _ Adaklies thought.  _ Talk like they had already won. _

“That blame is hers,” said Greyemeid.

“Really?” Jonas paused, then probed further. “Is that why you decided to leave?”

Greyemeid smirked at him, placing a claw on his hand. “I left because I love you.”

Jonas blushed so hard Adaklies could feel the heat coming off him. “Then why do you say the blame is hers?”

“Do you know what Livoetian hates more than anything?” said Greyemeid. “Sloth. Decay. She hated what the previous head of Ir was. She believed she could make the country the most powerful force in the world. She wanted a bastion for monsters, where the irrational hatred Aezerin had for us couldn’t hold us back. That was the Livoetian that descended upon the marauders that burned my hometown to the ground. But somewhere along the line, she forgot where she’d started. She stopped hating sloth and started hating the slothful. Aezerinians weren’t flawed, they were a menace. It wasn’t their actions, but the very nature of their existence that was the problem.”

“Well, regardless of what Livoetian did, I am glad you are here.”

“Oh? Are you?”

His brow furrowed. “Yes. Did I not just say so?”

Whatever came next, Adaklies didn’t hear. She pushed out the front door, sucking in breath like the outside air was the first she’d tasted in weeks. Closing her eyes, she gripped her wounded arm. The pain was still there, fresh, telling her she was making a mistake. Now was the time to run. Why did she insist on pursuing Livoetian?

She felt another’s eyes and turned to see Lex, standing in his garden, watching her.

“My house too small for that many dragons?” he asked.

Adaklies shook her head. “Nauseating lovebirds.”

He smiled. “They looked happy together.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“You’re not happy for them?”

“I should be.”

“Ah! It’s much easier to be bitter, isn’t it?”

“Are you?”

“Me? Of course not.” He looked back to his garden. “Probably.”

Adaklies walked over to him and the two stared at the vegetables swaying in the breeze. It was a gentle sort of silence.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing all the way out here?”

“I’d thought that was obvious from the questions the Mother asked you.”

“Oh, no, not her. You. What are  _ you _ doing?”

“Having a picnic.”

Lex chuckled. “It’s personal, then? Fair enough. My former wife has done plenty to deserve it.”

With all her might, Adaklies fought to keep her mouth shut. It wasn’t entirely untruthful. But she’d always been terrible at controlling her mouth.

“That’s not it.”

“What is, then?”

Adaklies crossed her arms, picking out a stalk of one of Lex’s garden plants and staring at it. “Dunno. But it’s not that.”

“That,” said Lex, sighing, “comes up much more than you’d expect. Take me. I don’t know what I’m doing out here, really. I just knew I couldn’t stay inside.”

“It’s pretty understandable you wouldn’t want to answer those questions. Of course you’d walk out.”

“It’s so clear to everyone else, isn’t it?” His head drooped. “It should feel like I’m betraying her. It should hurt.”

“But it doesn’t.”

“It’s like… the worst ‘I told you so’ moment you could ever experience. It’s like I can see her, standing right in front of me, and the want to say it is just as strong as the pain it’d cause me to. I didn’t  _ want _ her to end up like this, that’s exactly why I warned her. But if someone refuses to listen, what are you gonna do? That’s who they are. That’s their choice.” He turned to Adaklies. “How about you?”

“Huh?”

“There anyone out there that’d say ‘I told you so’?”

“I don’t have anyone like that,” said Adaklies, her face darkening. She debated whether or not coming out here was worse than staying inside.

“Y’know what confused me the most about Livoetian? I never quite knew what about me it was that got her attention. I’m a farmer. Not even that great of one. Heck, I didn’t even own the farm I worked on. I’d like to think I’m an honest worker, a hard worker, yes, but what about that catches the eye of the strongest lilim in the world?”

“Dunno. My ‘normality’ hasn’t caught anyone’s eye.”

“And mine didn’t, either. Until it did.”

“But surely she told you why, right? You were together for a while.”

“Ha! She said I had a nice ass.” He slapped his rear. “Maybe she was right, but that doesn’t mean she was telling the truth. Never got a real answer to that question. And I guess that was what I loved about her. The mystery. But mystery only gets you so far.” He waved his hand about. “Look at my life now. Living alone, supporting only myself and a few animals. About as plain and predictable as life can get.”

“Maybe she made you hate mystery.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I was tricking myself the whole time. Maybe I just love being ordinary.”

“Yeah.” Is this the kind of life an ordinary living leads to? A little farm, some visitors, a husband if she got lucky? “I’d rather die.”

“Ahahaha!” Lex threw his head back. “You just say what you want to, don’t you?”

“Better than saying what I don’t want to.”

“True, true. Well, you suppose it’s time we went back inside?”

Adaklies raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re going to tell us what we want to know?”

“Yup. To tell the truth, I don’t think I had a choice the moment I saw her eyes. Reminded me too much of Livoetian when I first met her. So much fire in them I thought I could taste ash.”

He waddled back into the house, Adaklies not far behind. Only Jonas seemed surprised Lex had returned.

“You’ve made your choice,” said the Mother.

“Yes.” Lex clasped his hands. Seconds passed as they stared at him, his face twitching with conflict. “You know, she was my wife for nearly fifteen years. But—” He raised a hand, stopping the Mother before she replied. “I’ll tell you. I get Livoetian did her share of work earning this. I just… I’m hoping you’ll give her a chance to do right by you before it comes to the worst.”

“Only with her death will she have done so,” said the Mother.

“Hell. It was worth a shot.”

“You broke up a long time ago, correct?” asked Jonas. “Why?”

“Lotta reasons, but one stands out much more than the others: I realized that as long as she was leading Ir, the war would never end. And war  _ wears _ .”

“Why do you still care, then?” said Adaklies.

“Because we never really lose the things we love. For better or for worse.” He smiled. “But I think Istoladrek there is about to pop my head off if I don’t get talking, and I’d rather spit it out before I talk myself out of it.”

Tapping the table with his fingers, Lex leaned back. “If you’re going to fight Livoetian, first thing you gotta know about is the Castle. See, it’s not a sphere around her, it’s a lot like, uh, a donut shape with her in the middle. So there’s a blind spot above her. It’s not that big, but if you come diving at her straight down, you can zip right through it. Shouldn’t be a problem for anyone with wings like y’all.”

“Second thing you gotta know about is her magic armor. It’s invisible and covers her entire body, but not impossible to get past. It’s normally brittle all around—maintaining the Castle takes a lotta power, so she can’t make herself invincible everywhere all the time. If she knows where she’s gonna get hit, however, she can reinforce the armor where the hit’s coming and make whatever it is bounce off, no problem. But if she doesn’t have time to react and you hit the armor, it gets fragile. Hit it hard enough or often enough like that, you’ll go straight through.”

“Would an ordinary sword work on her armor?” asked Jonas.

“Yeah, should get through it just fine, assuming the armor’s brittle enough. Couple surprise hits should do the trick.”

Greyemeid clasped her hands on the table. “You know a lot of specifics about this. Was this something Livoetian was open about? She never made anything but broad statements to me.”

“It might surprise y’all, but the woman was desperate for someone she could trust all the way down. She had her generals and attendants, but they don’t get the full Livoetian, just the lilim. She got where she was with power, not words, so when she found herself at the top and everyone gunning for her, she closed up. Until me.”

“Ironic that trust will kill her,” said Greyemeid.

“Suppose it is,” he said, deflated.

“Is there anything more you can tell us?” asked the Mother.

“That’s all I remember. Can’t think of anything else that might stop you.”

“The armor and the Castle make up the entirety of her defenses, then.”

He nodded.

The Mother analyzed him, her piercing gaze cutting through the already-despondent Lex. A long moment passed before she started for the door. “That will be enough. We’re leaving.”

Jonas and Greyemeid both offered a bow before following. “Thank you for answering our questions,” said Jonas.

“I’m, uh, glad I could help, I suppose.”

He didn’t look like it.

Adaklies started to stand, but Lex put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“Don’t let what happened to my wife happen to you, Adaklies.”

She gave him a hollow smile. “Don’t think that’s possible, Lex. I’ve no one to let down.”

***

Just as dusk’s light began to fade, the Mother had them land and make camp. They weren’t even an hour south of Malivus, dug into the rocky cover of a mountain with a fine view. Adaklies busied herself with setting up camp, idly listening to Jonas and Greyemeid chatter about trivial things. Nerves, she supposed.

Adaklies found a flat, open spot on the mountain’s side a short ways off and took the space to suck in a deep breath and relax. Her claw came up and she half-closed it, trying to summon her drekhel.

Tonight, though, she couldn’t even get started. Every time she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the fire, she thought about Greyemeid swinging her own drekhel, the giant two-headed axe of wicked, fiery steel. Adaklies thought about how she had one without even needing the Mother to show her how. How long had it taken her? How long had she had it?

Grumbling, Adaklies crossed her arms, resting her head on them, and frowned at the sunset.

“Such things deserve not your disquiet.”

Adaklies spun, finding the Mother approaching her from behind, eyes on the horizon. She took a seat next to Adaklies.

Adaklies suddenly felt much smaller.

“Why would you say that?” said Adaklies.

“The answer will come when it matters.”

“You’ve got more faith in me than I do, then.”

Taking a deep breath, the Mother took in the sunset. “Such beauty hidden in plain sight. Mayhaps it’s time again I pay them attention.”

“It’s nice,” said Adaklies. “Better than most.”

They watched the sky in silence. It  _ was _ nice. The clouds looked like splashes from a brush, a speckled violet igniting to a swelling, anxious red. Through the breaks in the clouds was a thunderous blue so deep it could’ve been the sea. Every trace of color and every shift in the clouds all collapsed in toward the bleeding, dying light at the zenith.

“Folsomar and I met first at the coast south of here in the aftermath of a hurricane. The first words he said to me were, ‘Watch your horns, you might hit them on the clouds.’”

The Mother paused as if expecting a reply. Not wanting to stop her story before it started, Adaklies just nodded.

“A carpenter he was, rummaging through the remains of his house, separating the useful scraps from bothersome trash. I remember a discontented look on his face, like naught amongst the debris would satisfy him. Enter I amidst the wreckage, deep in curiosity, when he saw me and yelled out those words. He meant to rile me, make me feel as though I must needs prove sincerity so when he asked me to help, I would.” The Mother smiled. “I ignored him. At day’s end, I circled back to Folsomar and found him already trying to put something together with the wood he deemed still workable. Care to venture a guess what it might have been?”

“No idea.”

“A wall frame. The man was trying to rebuild his house that very day! His want defined, all that remained was to build the bridge to it using his own two hands. Some of his former neighbors mocked him for it. The town was absolutely devastated. Unsalvageable. They claimed no volume of effort could restore what they lost.” Her eyes narrowed on Adaklies with a directed glance. “Some laugh at the stars while their feet cling tight to the ground. Others fly.

“Curiosity compelled my return. Folsomar had since finished a small shack to work out of and was helping others rebuild their homes. Those who stayed and those who put in the effort were rewarded. The weaker ones fled. I suppose that was the moment I began to fall in love with him.”

“I still don’t understand how someone like you could end up with someone like him,” said Adaklies. “Just the difference in your ages seems overwhelming.”

“Age is not the metric by which a heart is measured.” Something of a smile threatened the Mother’s face. “And he had something, something I’d been searching for. You have it too.”

“I doubt it.” Adaklies couldn’t keep the smarminess out of her voice. “But, for the sake of curiosity, what might ‘it’ be?”

The Mother sighed. “Sixteen hundred years and that answer eludes me still. Ambition it is not, though it yearns. Determination it is not, though it pushes through. It is a pull without origin nor destination. It offers no certainty, no means nor cornerstone. But it moves those who have it, inexorable and puissant.”

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing special like that.”

“Special? No. I have found it universal. Only some feed it, however. Suppose Greyemeid. She let it die. As a prodigy, she had no need to change the world around her, for she knew the means to manipulate and thrive within it. One day Jonas may find it, but that one invests himself in a faith in proper order. In the idea that there is a correct way of things.  _ You _ , however… you have been given nothing. The swell of the world, each roughness and imperfection has buffeted your rampart and you have beaten it back. You have found the hunger and you have fed it. You reach without mind of your grasp. One day it will kill you, as it will kill all of us.” She turned back to the horizon. “And on that day, the world will tremble.”

Adaklies squeezed her fist so tight it hurt. Tomorrow she may find death, but there was no way it’d involve something as extravagant as the Mother mentioned.

“Once, I, too, knew this thing, but I lost it along the way. I’d hoped Folsomar could show me how to get it back. And maybe he did. Hard to tell, it is.”

“Is that… is that why you two were so much more warm to me than I expected you to be?”

“Myself, perhaps. Folsomar had his own reasons, though I suspect he since divulged them.”

“Ah.” Adaklies’s gaze dipped to the ground. “I wish I could return your faith, but I’m still inexperienced. I’ve never fought someone like Livoetian before and I haven’t even found my drekhel yet. There’s little I’ll be able to do for you tomorrow.”

“Whatever obstacle you have constructed lies entirely within you. Hence, the tools to overcome it reside within as well.”

“I don’t know why you think I’m going to make something of myself!”

Adaklies immediately covered her mouth after the outburst, but the Mother was smirking.

“So something is there. Why fear you the attempt?”

No force could make her meet eyes with the Mother. She hung her head and pondered.

“I would be remiss toward my husband’s wishes if I did not say this: if there is aught I might help you with, tell me. I may be inclined.”

Adaklies paused. There was one thing, and since the Mother was already asking… “Can I have Folsomar’s sword?”

The Mother shot her an inquisitive look. “You usually don’t fight with a sword. You won’t need it once you find your drekhel, anyways.”

“I’d like to have it.”

After a moment of thought, the Mother reached into her pack. “Very well. I will want it back after the fight, however.” 

When Adaklies saw the Mother pull out the enchanted sword she’d fetched for Folsomar, Adaklies stopped her. “No, his other sword. The one he’d been carrying since the beginning.”

“That one is mere steel.”

Adaklies nodded.

“If that is what you want.”

In that moment, holding the sword, Adaklies believed she had a choice to make.

[ ](http://touchfluffytail.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ederkleff-obs.png)

***

“Greyemeid, you’ll be with me,” said the Mother.

The four of them were huddled, waiting for dawn to break, while discussing how to approach Livoetian.

“Jonas, you will stay back beyond the Castle.”

His face went red with irritation. “I want to—”

“You will stay back,” said the Mother.

It took him a moment and a swallow, but he nodded.

“I need someone in reserve both to take advantage of any mistake Livoetian makes and to make her cautious. We may know you don’t have a secret weapon ready for her, but she does not. While you’re there and she knows you’re there, she must stay on edge.”

“And what about me?” asked Adaklies.

“You’ll be using what we learned from Lex. Give us a short head start, make sure her attention is on us, then approach her from above. When you can, dive straight down on her and hit her armor. With luck, you’ll break it. At the very least, it will make it brittle enough to shatter with another hit.”

Nodding, Adaklies’s grip tightened on Folsomar’s sword. She’d make it count.

“Greyemeid,” said the Mother, “We’ll be essentially buying time until Adaklies strikes. Do not attack in earnest until Adaklies acts unless we need to open a window of opportunity for her.”

“Understood,” said Greyemeid, her face hardened. Both her and Jonas shared that soldier disposition.

“That’s the whole of the plan. I don’t want to make it any more complex, the simpler the better. Any questions?”

Silence passed between the four of them. No, there wouldn’t be any questions. They all knew why they were here.

“Then let’s head out.”

Just as the Mother planned, the flight to Malivus was a short one. They were in the air for hardly an hour before the city came into view. Adaklies tensed up, ready, trying to spot out a tall building where Livoetian might be waiting, but the Mother motioned for them to stop with the city still far away.

Before Adaklies could ask why, the Mother pointed to the plains in front of the city. “Look.”

A flood of soldiers were lined up outside the city, all in formation, armored and ready for combat. Adaklies could make out lines of soldiers on the city walls as well, each standing at attention. It wasn’t a full army, from the looks of it, but it could very well have been the entirety of the city’s defense force.

Waiting.

“She’s making us fight her soldiers first?” said Adaklies.

“No,” said Greyemeid. “Something much more clever. She’s making us an example.” She pointed to a spot on the plains, far in front of the soldiers.

The small white figure of Livoetian was standing, relaxed, like she was about to brush off some bothersome dirt.

“How did she know we were coming?” asked Adaklies.

“Likely whatever spies tracked us down in the first place. She can’t fight alongside soldiers or even within the city and still use her Castle. So she’s come out here to face us, making sure her soldiers are watching. The news of my betrayal must’ve spread and now she’s using this fight as a way to keep her soldiers in line.”

“She’ll look terrible if she loses, though,” said Adaklies.

“I doubt her corpse will care,” said the Mother. “We’ll split here. All ready?”

The four of them nodded to each other.

Adaklies brandished Folsomar’s steel sword. “For the man who needs a reason to do anything.”

Shock struck the Mother’s face as she spun on Adaklies. “What?! Where did you…” She took a moment then trailed off, shaking her head.

And they broke off.

There was a crack and magenta magic flashed through the air. Taking her cue, Adaklies climbed, going as high as she dared before flying over where the battle raged.

Even as high as she was, she could make out what was happening and it didn’t look good. She’d been hoping that the Mother and Greyemeid would be able to cut through the Castle by flight but Livoetian was much more focused this fight. With only two targets, both of which she respected, the magic that blossomed from her shone so bright Adaklies could barely focus on it.

As a consequence, Greyemeid was forced to the ground, where she could advance more cautiously. The Mother made it through, but not before taking several hits.

Adaklies’s arm burned where she’d been hit last time. She could only imagine the pain those attacks were causing.

The Mother’s drekhel flashed. Livoetian moved faster.

The two whirled, pushed, pulled, struck and parried faster than Adaklies’s eyes could see. There was a blur of motion and a second later the Mother was flying backward. The Castle immediately ambushed her. She took it head on.

With those precious seconds, Livoetion spun on Greyemeid and launched several massive orbs of magic at her. Seconds before they hit, Greyemeid leapt backwards out of the way before dashing forward again.

The Mother caught up to Livoetian and they clashed. Magic splashed against the Mother’s scales. Her drekhel hammered on Livoetian’s shield.

Adaklied squeezed Folsomar’s sword. This may be her chance. As soon as Livoetian threw the Mother off again, Adaklies would have a clear lane to her target. Her wings fluttered.

Then Livoetian landed a hit on the Mother’s leg. She staggered.

Adaklies dove. The roar of sky filled her ears. The battlefield and Livoetian rushed up to her.

She brought Folsomar’s sword down.

It connected with a mighty clang so loud Adaklies feared it may shatter. The air rippled. The barrier around Livoetian held, angrily throwing the sword backwards, making it shake with a force that just about tore it from Adaklies’s grip. Within that second, Livoetian spun with dizzying speed.

“Be  _ gone _ from my sight!” she yelled, then pounded Adaklies with a vicious flash of magic.

Pain bloomed. Her dodge wasn’t fast enough, but at least she could use the momentum to spiral backwards and away. Throwing out her wings, Adaklies managed to control herself, but only a second before an arrow from the Castle formed and launched itself at her. Grunting, Adaklies zipped backwards and out of the way. She landed and immediately grabbed the new wound at her hip. Just like with her arm, she’d sacrificed her scales to avoid crippling injury.

But Adaklies had landed her hit. Lex’s information was good. One more solid hit on the armor would get through it.

Unfortunately, that was the only thing going for them. Greyemeid was stuck in the Castle, the air alight with lethal magic around her. The Mother was able to make some progress, but she could only get up close for a few moments before Livoetian ejected her once more and each foray into the Castle cost her.

Jonas caught her eye, waving to her from nearby cover. Yes, she could help from outside the Castle. Surely he had come up with something, he wanted to be useful too.

The Mother herself was still going strong, cleaving through magic arrow after magic arrow with her drekhel, headed fast for Livoetian again. The Mother was a Pillar as well—Adaklies shouldn’t underestimate exactly how many times she could make it through the Castle. Greyemeid, too, was a fine soldier. The Castle might have been beating her back now, but she’d gained considerable ground since the fight first started. It was very possible Adaklies wasn’t needed. Who was Adaklies to interject herself? She’d done what she needed to do. Her drekhel still eluded her and without that, she was nothing. It wasn’t the place of a common dragon like her to assume she could help, even if it was possible.

_ “There.” _

Adaklies heard Folsomar’s voice. Her heart beat like a clamoring bell. Her memory flashed backward back to that day in the bar. The moment when she felt something, eye to eye with Jonas. A spark. Who was this stranger, this footsoldier, this  _ nobody _ , to dare try to take on Queen of Demons?

The subtly shimmering barrier of the Castle hung before her. All she had to her name was a bounty. Her wounded arm and hip burned with mortality. It wasn’t the Castle. It was death.  _ And it didn’t matter. _

Jonas _knew_ the risk. Folsomar _knew_ his limits. They knew, and, sweet demons, _they_ _did it anyways._ They climbed their mountains, telling themselves one day it would be behind them. While they could not wield a certainty of their outcomes, they could wield something else: choice.

Adaklies looked at her sword.

She still had hands to hold a weapon. She still had legs to carry her forward. She still had will to bear her fear. She still had wings.

_ And with these wings I soar. _

Adaklies broke the barrier flying, wind a deafening clamor in her ears. Arrows of magic spawned all around her instantly, singing their deadly barrage with a hum of warning. Adaklies dove under the first arrow and banked hard to avoid the second. Two more rained on her from above, but with a beat of her wings and a tuck of her legs, she was past them.

She sucked in her chest as one more missed by inches. The distance between her and Livoetian shrunk fast, but still she seemed so far away. Forever.

Livoetian held the Mother off with deft dodges and violent blasts of magic. The Mother’s drekhel struggled to reach her, catching air again and again. Finally, one strike went through, aimed at the hip, but Livoetian’s armor caught it and tossed it away. With the Mother reeling from the strike, Livoetian planted both hands on her chest and unleashed.

A brilliant pink light forced Adaklies to look away and when she focused back on Livoetian, the Mother was whirling backwards, body smoking as the Castle pelted her mercilessly. Livoetian shifted to other pests. While Greyemeid was still forging ahead, she wasn’t making real progress. Adaklies’s risker strategy had brought her closer.

Livoetian turned to her.

Time slowed. Adaklies saw Livoetian smile at her and, with a dismissive wave, unleash death. Dozens of magic arrows, all different sizes, shapes, and speeds rushed forward to meet Adaklies. Above her, behind her, below her, the Castle brought upon a new barrage of its own.

But there had to be a way through. A million threads ended in Adaklies’s death, but the only one in her mind was the one where she pushed forward. So she bolted toward the barrage, watching how each and every arrow moved, and carefully picked out the gap.

She found it. If she blocked a single arrow and twisted just the right way, she could do it.  _ She could do it. _ The steel sword came up. Adaklies braced it with a claw just before the arrow connected.

The entire sword hummed, shaking, buckling, hot with the raw energy flowing through it. Adaklies held on tighter, and did the only thing left to her. Hope.

The sword held.

Gasping, she followed through on the spin, watching her wings, cutting them through the tiny spaces in the barrage, diving forward with all the speed she had. One wing hissed as an arrow grazed it and Adaklies stumbled. The ground came up fast. Her maneuver had cost her a lot of momentum.

She planted her foot. She drew a breath of flame.

The Castle stopped.

A dozen paces. Her blade rose. Her other foot fell. Livoetian spun, shock on her face. She didn’t have time for another barrage. With a yell, Adaklies devoured the distance between them. Another step. Another step. Her entire body screamed. She lifted her blade higher. The breath she’d been holding streaked from her mouth: a broad stream of immense heat aimed straight for Livoetian’s face. Livoetian raised her hand to block it.

Adaklies’s blade fell. It was early, far too early to connect. But Livoetian’s vision was blocked by the flames and smoke and the downward swing was never what Adaklies intended in the first place.

She thrust for the heart.

For an instant, the tip hovered in the air, a breath away from its target. Adaklies heard a rattle of resistance from the magic armor. But on that day, in that place, at that moment, that blade and the dragon behind it would not be denied. There was a crack.

Folsomar’s sword dove through.

Livoetian gaped, struggling to draw breath, eyes bulging in complete and utter disbelief at the sword sticking out of her chest. She fell to her knees. Her arms went for the sword, but her grip had no strength behind it.

Adaklies stared fire into Livoetian’s eyes, digging the sword deeper. The lilim’s resistance gave out.

Adaklies roared to the sky. With every last bit of herself, she roared. She roared in anger, in vengeance, in relief, and in pure conquest. The world shook in resonance as she spewed the raw essence of her emotion to any who dared listen.

Eyes lit with fury, Adaklies raised a claw to strike Livoetian, but something stopped it. Spinning, Adaklies found the Mother holding her wrist.

“Finely done, Adaklies. But we’d want not to accidentally knock that sword loose. Retreat a spell whilst I do what I came to do.”

If it was possible, Livoetian’s expression looked even more fearful now. Robbed of all energy, however, she could do nothing as the Mother descended upon her. The Mother laid her body down gently then placed a hand on her head and began to chant.

During whatever ritual the Mother was doing, Livoetian managed to raise her hand, struggling to draw breath, and attempted to pull the Mother’s claw off her head. When her grip went limp, the Mother stopped, shook her head, and closed Livoetian’s lifeless eyes.

“Is that it?” asked Adaklies.

“Yes,” said the Mother. “Livoetian is dead.”

***

Adaklies, Jonas, and Greyemeid all sat at the edge of the forest, the couple leaning against each other while Adaklies sat with her back against a tree, watching Livoetian’s army disperse. It was unreal. Livoetian was dead. A monumental relief but, at the same time, an enormous void. There was nothing left for Adaklies to do. Sure, Greyemeid had a country to run now, and Jonas would be there with her, and the Mother needed to grieve, but Adaklies? What was next for her? Go back to being a criminal?

As if reading her thoughts, Jonas spoke up. “Where are you going now?”

“Dunno. Back to Keian, I guess. There are a couple good people back there.”

“You are welcome to join us,” he said.

“Nah. Taking a country’s fine and all, but running one? No thanks.”

“I’m sure there’s still plenty of battles ahead for us, if that’s what you’re interested in,” said Greyemeid.

Adaklies looked to the army that had been watching their fight. Some were brave enough to hold formation even still. She shook her head. “I hate armies.”

“You were a key part of this victory,” said Jonas. “We can find you a nice place to live in Malivus once we’re in charge and a fine coffer of gold to rest on. You’ve earned at least that much.”

Adaklies smiled to herself. Every time, without fail, someone thought wealth was what she was after. “Not my style.”

“We—”

“Jonas, dear,” said Greyemeid. “She’s trying to tell us she’d like to go her own way tactfully.”

“Sorry,” said Jonas.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Out there, somewhere, was her next conquest. Her next reason. She knew she wouldn’t find it in Malivus.

A flutter of wings and a soft landing announced the Mother’s return. “I’ve finished burying Livoetian. Rest assured there are no means of restoring her known to mortal minds.”

The four regarded each other, silent, thinking if there was something more to say. Another excuse to stay together, another reason for a long goodbye. And while there may have been one, none of them could think of it.

“I guess that is it, then,” said Jonas, walking up to the Mother. He held out his hand. “Thank you for everything. I owe you so much.”

The Mother took his hand and shook it. “Yes. And you can be sure I will call on that debt one day.”

Undaunted, he nodded. Then he went to Adaklies and offered his hand. She ignored it and hugged him.

“You’ll need more than a handshake for the world you’re about to enter,” said Adaklies.

He returned the hug. “I suppose you are right.”

Greyemeid said farewell to the Mother before approaching Adaklies. “You were the one who came through in the end. Without a drekhel, too.”

“Those things are too gaudy for me.”

Greyemeid didn’t bother offering a hand and hugged Adaklies, squeezing her with wings and arms a moment before breaking away. “Thank you. And don’t forget Jonas’s offer. We’ll always welcome you.”

“When I’m famous, I might grace you with some of my time. Maybe.”

The two shared a smile. Then, without leaving any room to make it harder, Greyemeid took Jonas and left.

The Mother and Adaklies looked at each other, Adaklies trying to figure out what to say while the Mother cut through Adaklies with her passive stare.

“I think I’ll miss you, Mother,” said Adaklies.

“And you are one I’ll not soon forget.”

The wind picked up, a whistling, a calling, a whisper. Adaklies’s hair tossed about and she wondered if she could hear the world roar.

“He was just happy to be with you,” said Adaklies. “Didn’t regret a second of it.”

“Yes,” said the Mother, her cup spilling over. “Yes, I suppose he didn’t.”

***

The air was awash with barley as Adaklies stepped into Gremm’s bar. Everyone inside, monster and human alike, were celebrating. For those who lived near the border and bore the brunt of Aezerinian aggression, Livoetian’s death was the best news they’d heard in years. There was a hint of hesitance to their celebration, however. It was hard to tell what Aezerin would do in reaction. Even with that taint, though, the beer flowed thick and heavy.

Smiling softly to herself, Adaklies took a deep breath and sauntered up to the bar. Not halfway there, Gremm spotted her and called out.

“Adaklies! You’re back!” He pointed to her stool. “Saved your stool for ya!”

She gave it a light pat before sitting down on it. Just as comfy as she remembered.

“So! You probably heard, but the Demon Lord’s been put down and the whole place is havin’ a nice lil’ celebration! For you, first round’s on the house!” He stepped to the side, showing off his entire collection. “What’ll you have?”

Adaklies leaned forward, resting her arms on the bar. His entire collection, hmm? After a thought, she knew exactly what she wanted. “Water.”

Gremm paused, smiled, and grabbed a cup. “Water it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All images for this series can be found here: https://imgbox.com/galleries#/zlYr887AmK


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